tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85578171774647387362024-03-13T02:05:04.557-07:00Screen SnapshotsMovies, Stars and Radio from the 20s to the 50s - it's all here!Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.comBlogger88125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-64305485314237745662021-12-16T16:12:00.152-08:002022-02-15T17:31:33.253-08:00The False Madonna (1931) - Kay Francis and the Art of High Melodrama<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8IH74NQlmsj46kpABS-bmejSM7SAyp8FHuOjOk3YportTkBrxhZTuliO3zWvTprt2OYmAZzsGypf-vU1P808LJQXk8PmzQfGz_GFahjSIzHdRtuZTB6pTOrgHx4c2g2-rygWUv2XEj96jlBzQCLsOc1PUOs00MeUxpIZjUOUOeJdCTTis2bVKeCb_=s251" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="251" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8IH74NQlmsj46kpABS-bmejSM7SAyp8FHuOjOk3YportTkBrxhZTuliO3zWvTprt2OYmAZzsGypf-vU1P808LJQXk8PmzQfGz_GFahjSIzHdRtuZTB6pTOrgHx4c2g2-rygWUv2XEj96jlBzQCLsOc1PUOs00MeUxpIZjUOUOeJdCTTis2bVKeCb_=w400-h320" width="400" /></a></div>Sometimes the premise of a classic movie is so ridiculous that you know that audiences back in the day were rolling their eyes at the hackneyed melodrama and shaking their collective heads at the sheer stupidity of the picture play unravelling before them. It's always reassuring to read the letters in old fan magazines to see that movie mavens from practically day one were a sophisticated bunch who could recognise lazy writing, poor direction or blatant exploitation when they saw it. However, occasionally a film has a nonsensical, soapy plot, contains characters so over the top that they verge on comic and pulls the heart strings in such an obvious melodramatic way worthy of early D. W. Griffith, that despite the sheer absurdity of everything on screen, it somehow works. Not only that but it works in a beautiful, punch the air in delight sort of way that brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. That, as we all know is the magic of the movies, and believe it or not <i>The False Madonna</i> is such a movie.<div><br /></div><div>Kay Francis plays Tina, one of a quartet of con artists led by William 'Stage' Boyd's disbarred physician Dr. Marcy. On the run after another failed confidence trick they hitch a train ride out of town and stumble upon a dying woman in a nearby compartment. The woman's last wish is to see her estranged son Phillip Beddows again after 14 years and, crucially she also happens to mention that he has recently inherited $10 million. Seeing an opportunity, Marcy uses the knowledge gleaned from her final utterances to set up Tina as the long lost mother in a plot to swindle the boy out of his fortune.</div><div><br /></div><div>Right from the start we are in somewhat muddy waters as the general conceit of the plot already hinges on the audience suspending their disbelief on a number of key points. Most obviously, that the son, or indeed anyone in his close family or household would realise that the woman returning home bears no resemblance to the one that left. To make matters worse, once the impersonation begins there is no attempt to make 26 year old Kay Francis look remotely like a woman with a 17 year old child, (let alone the fact that the woman in question is played by 52 year old Julia Swayne Gordon). Surely a gang of experienced con artists would have at least thought to change up her make up? Admittedly a number of these details are addressed during the movie but Kay's youthful appearance stands out as an obvious flaw in their plan. However, as the film progresses, the number of implausible moments increases, and after a while it's best just to accept everything and move on. </div><div><br /></div><div>Initially sceptical, and wanting out of the criminal life, Tina is convinced to do one last job and "Play the long lost Madonna". All she needs to do is "Be sweet, be poor and shed a few tears" and so she begins by sewing some holes into a dress and adding some motherly braids to her hair. Now looking <i>at least</i> 27 she reluctantly sets off to meet her long lost 'son' and find a way to get his newly acquired money. As luck would have it, and because this is the highest of melodrama, the son in question turns out to be blind (the result of a plane crash) and the only obstacle to her scam is the boy's family friend and lawyer, Grant Arnold. He has met the real Mrs Beddows but conveniently admits it was many years ago, his memory is vague and that all photos of her were destroyed when she left 14 years previously. Though highly implausible at outset, all the angles have now been covered and Tina is set to cash in. What could go wrong?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsiYmz_pT0GclMNuazW41u2P_Cd_1jIrJOxzEm5f1bod5MKZdkYhn_e76MqxV9NX4I2kyLrUmvdNxJY83d5EflowZPJEC-qdxl85cX4ik13ZNckBWa_TCsdWQrzOk6WKJTz_XUcr8QDrx8bkjZexE94bg-yJ7KfV_WwI6JWO5UNa9Tm7LOVawTbqjc=s258" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="258" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsiYmz_pT0GclMNuazW41u2P_Cd_1jIrJOxzEm5f1bod5MKZdkYhn_e76MqxV9NX4I2kyLrUmvdNxJY83d5EflowZPJEC-qdxl85cX4ik13ZNckBWa_TCsdWQrzOk6WKJTz_XUcr8QDrx8bkjZexE94bg-yJ7KfV_WwI6JWO5UNa9Tm7LOVawTbqjc=w400-h302" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Reunited with her long lost son, Tina spends time in the gardens with him and they sing songs (badly) by the piano and he is so happy that he decides to give her a cheque for $50,000. Phillip's boyish enthusiasm for life despite his disability starts to thaw Tina's icy heart and before long a crisis of conscience emerges. Finally, Grant admits that Phillip is actually dying and, in true melodramatic form, that "any shock, no matter how slight might finish him", and so Tina's mind is made up - she will forego the money and stay with Phillip.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the midst of this tragic situation returns Dr. Marcy posing as a physician and eager to get the fortune. He threatens to expose Tina if she doesn't get the money by the next morning. However, Phillip takes a turn for the worse and dies that night. Marcy returns and is outraged that Tina has let him down. Luckily Grant has been researching Marcy's crooked past and has called the police. Tina, tells him tearfully, "When I came here I believed in your code. I believed that life was a racket. It was a case of get mine first cause the world owed me what i could grab...I was to play on the feelings of a boy, a lonely boy aching for the love of a mother...that boy believed in me. For the first time in my life I learned the joy of giving, not taking".</div><div><br /></div><div>Dr. Marcy escapes and later, Tina readies herself to leave. Out of nowhere, Grant asks if she would stay for him. Replying "Sometimes the blind can see so much clearly than we can", Tina decides to stay and start a new life with Grant.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhpsmbbNDge9mZ2MGwI5rY7sLiKZn-vghYWWprIF0DTzYAl5Y-osh3qNWj6g-X5tmfXl9_O1pu3k8g05WbV73uK3ze0kiytUo56eKopb-NiERnCMav1Vg6fm888bBwAca8uknGniRJigmhoIJKH9f3v30XxaLLPodnqymAptU_bKKsX8-XLy6j0HkX=s300" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhpsmbbNDge9mZ2MGwI5rY7sLiKZn-vghYWWprIF0DTzYAl5Y-osh3qNWj6g-X5tmfXl9_O1pu3k8g05WbV73uK3ze0kiytUo56eKopb-NiERnCMav1Vg6fm888bBwAca8uknGniRJigmhoIJKH9f3v30XxaLLPodnqymAptU_bKKsX8-XLy6j0HkX=w400-h224" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Now, in the above summary, the plot seems to be as old as the hills, which it is. It has many classic elements of melodrama; a criminal with a conscience healed by love, a rediscovered family relationship (sort of), the constant threat of exposure by outside forces, tragic and sudden illness and death, inexplicable romance between characters to give a happy ending and many more. All of these are standard tropes seen in films right back to the earliest Biograph reels and the dramatic stage before that. Silent movies, for the entirety of their existence loved this type of high drama as it leant itself easily to its visual and emotional style to the point of it unfortunately becoming a cliché, both then and now. This love for torrid theatrical melodrama continued unabated with the coming of sound, and early talkies are littered with a seemingly endless supply of drawing room dramas, essentially filmed plays. Apart from being a way to get hit Broadway plays a showing in the provinces, these were easy to film, used limited sets, showed off the new technology of sound and provided a healthy dose of drama and romance for audiences.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, the problem is that for a motion picture, a filmed stage play is not too interesting and not every director had the 'Lubitsch touch' to make such things sparkle with life. As a result a lot of early sound pictures, though often of historical and cultural interest are in fact dull as dishwater and awash with semi remembered secondary players getting to grips with talking pictures with varying levels of success. As a result, for a melodrama to stand out from the crowd and shine, a number of elements need to be in place. </div><div><br /></div><div>Firstly it needs a plot that is bordering on the ridiculous, with situations and coincidences that are both obvious yet outrageous. The melodrama also needs lead actors that can pull off the material, with the ability to make audiences invest fully in the seriousness of the nonsense going on around them, and if possible wring every droplet of emotion out of the tortured words and scenes. Additionally, supporting actors need to be stoic and sincere, a calm inlet in the middle of a storm. If possible there needs to be at least one cast member who doesn't get any of the above memos and just freestyles a memorable and excessive performance. Add a director with just a smidgen of flair and you possibly have yourself a great example of high melodrama. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a difficult balance, especially for modern audiences, as the worst thing a classic movie can have is an audience laughing at it when it means to be serious. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, there is a fine line to be maintained between high melodrama and high camp. Those are two different things, but often audience hold a movie up as a 'camp classic' when it is not intended that way. We can always laugh with a movie, but laughing <i>at</i> it is unkind and unnecessary. <i>The False Madonna</i> is indeed silly, but it's never funny and contains a sincerity of its convictions at its heart that makes it something bigger than the sum of its parts.</div><div><br /></div><div>Going back to my essential requirements, <i>The False Madonna</i> scores big with its plot. As if the 'criminal pretends to be the lost mother of a dying blind boy for his money' plot wasn't silly enough, the layers of ridiculousness pile up when the lead is a clearly too young for the part Kay Francis in all her finery. As discussed earlier, this essentially exposes the preposterousness of the story as absolutely no effort is made to make her look even a few years older. Strangely, her 17 year old 'son' is played by John Breedon, an actor a full year older than Kay Francis! Luckily he somewhat looks the part, but is clearly nowhere near his teenage years. These unusual casting decisions actually make the worn out plot that bit more interesting and the quick transitions from criminal enterprise to heart warming love with the addition of sudden tragic death become somewhat more memorable as a result.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, the real cornerstone of the the whole movie is Kay Francis in a truly star making performance. Here, Kay was at the tail end of her contract with Paramount and on the cusp of her breakthrough move to Warner Bros. It was her first film as the top billed star and showed that she easily had the ability and aura to headline a movie. From her first scenes in the railroad car sitting in thoughtful silence while her criminal cohorts complain about their latest failed grift, we are drawn to her as a conflicted character. The fact that she looks so out of place with a cast of grotesques just highlights her plight, and shows how far she has been pushed to end up so numb to her lifestyle immediately invests the viewer in her dilemma. Kay Francis proves to be an incredibly subtle actress at this stage in her career; she never completely commands or dominates the screen but her furrowed brow and perpetually worried look draws the audience's attention and sympathy. It builds towards her closing speech - a beautifully orchestrated exercise in restrained hysteria that belongs in any Kay Francis highlight reel. It's the sort of lip trembling performance that she perfected at Warner Bros, but in <i>The False Madonna</i> it seems she already has a real understanding of her screen persona and its potential for pathos and tragedy.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOu_LT3W44d9aV0iYkH2T9u_vcLiELmqerjCwYmVujSi4fEWuDrayguhPp0iJxZjLZN2WQ7tuVF_QSAe3XGi8YRKcA4Ioc6CgXop_dIyPyXp62WXouH3aIMaG5C0oqVfEYXeW91RWu3q4ky8uK0keOZkJQQkCPTWEJFUDa8abI4Xin3PC_NqadoVy-=s249" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="203" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOu_LT3W44d9aV0iYkH2T9u_vcLiELmqerjCwYmVujSi4fEWuDrayguhPp0iJxZjLZN2WQ7tuVF_QSAe3XGi8YRKcA4Ioc6CgXop_dIyPyXp62WXouH3aIMaG5C0oqVfEYXeW91RWu3q4ky8uK0keOZkJQQkCPTWEJFUDa8abI4Xin3PC_NqadoVy-=w326-h400" width="326" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>William 'Stage' Boyd gives a suitably snarling performance as the amoral Dr. Marcy. His single minded pursuit of wealth by deception contrasts ably with Kay Francis' conflicted mindset. Although off screen scandal derailed the early promise of Boyd's career in talking pictures, he is supremely believable in the part. There's a great moment when he learns that he's not going to get hold of the boy's fortune and he just calmly asks to leave, mentally moving onto his next victim without conscience. Perhaps he could have been used as a more theatrically evil villain but with everything else going on in the story it probably would have been a bit too much. Instead he is a villain in a far more realistic and satisfying way, an eternal grifter.</div><div><br /></div><div>The rest of the cast are uniformly solid, highlighted by a smooth and understated Conway Tearle deftly weaving through the household drama between the false mother and her son without giving away his hand until the right moment. Other notable players on screen include Marjorie Gateson and Charles D. Brown as a cynical, eternally bickering couple in the quartet of conmen and frequent Hal Roach supporting actress May Wallace expertly lending her motherly face to the role of Phillip's nurse. As usual from a movie of the early sound era, the mix of long time silent bit-parters and recent theatre recruits makes for a rich supporting cast of believable faces.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, one member of the cast that needs to be mentioned is that of John Breeden, who plays the tragic blind teen Phillip Bellows. He suffers from the same problem as Kay Francis does in playing his supposed mother in that he is plainly too old for the role. Despite his youthful face and costuming he just isn't particularly good in the part, mainly due to the strange acting choices he makes. Age is always a weird thing in classic movies, where 20 year old men wear tweed and smoke pipes and teenagers look like they are in their 30s, and this is no different. Breeden acts with a breathless enthusiasm of a child and an unnerving intensity that makes him borderline creepy. Whatever news he is given, be it his lost mother's poverty or his own fragile health it is all received with the same toothy grin and unwavering puppy dog positivity. Unfortunately the script does him no favours either with dialogue such as "It's lots of fun to be able to give things!". In the end, Breeden being so hyperactively happy is one of the main factors that pushes the movie into the strata of High Melodrama, as his performance is so ridiculous and off tone, like a boy having the <i>best day of his life</i> as the plane he is on is crashing to its destruction. Just a very, very odd performance.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNtlDBEgSHak0yU19MVqb857VX4A_F69cC5Xyi8bRSL6Z6a4E9M91k5Qo7-Qs6cnbJ4q_N32DCqEdPkle5d9Y9lQhwciRbgrKzTf7d09TEEqXIhJByDr3lNEKpWp9vKCK7gIFG-vlDGLpnjUK1UlWFcsA-uie2LNQlXlntSKiULT5mzAvELnpMIp4G=s257" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="196" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNtlDBEgSHak0yU19MVqb857VX4A_F69cC5Xyi8bRSL6Z6a4E9M91k5Qo7-Qs6cnbJ4q_N32DCqEdPkle5d9Y9lQhwciRbgrKzTf7d09TEEqXIhJByDr3lNEKpWp9vKCK7gIFG-vlDGLpnjUK1UlWFcsA-uie2LNQlXlntSKiULT5mzAvELnpMIp4G=w305-h400" width="305" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>There's not a lot to be said about the direction by Stuart Walker, it's workmanlike and keeps the pace going nicely. Walker only had a brief career as a director before switching to being a producer, but his body of work is solid, with <i>Werewolf of London</i> perhaps being his best known film. Here it could be said that he does an excellent job making the most of such a preposterous script, but some of the performances could have done with more work from him, particularly in toning down John Breeden and perhaps ramping up an often overshadowed Conway Tearle. However, his handling of Phillip's death scene, left mostly in silence and with a static camera fixed on a bedroom doorway, the opening and closing of which cueing the audience in to the health of the ailing boy is sensitive and beautifully staged and probably the highlight of the whole film.</div><div><br /></div><div>Whether <i>The False Madonna</i> can be considered a good film is entirely reliant on the viewer's personal tastes regarding dramatic styles. It's old fashioned even for 1931, the plot is ridiculous, the key casting is ridiculous and some of the acting choices are ridiculous. For some this would be enough to consign it to the bottom tier of early sound features, but for me the disparate and (have I mentioned?) ridiculous elements somehow come together to produce a hugely entertaining piece of pure unadulterated escapist fun. Holding together this patchwork of preposterousness is an emergent Kay Francis, finding solid feet as a headlining star and previewing a blueprint for the kind of high drama she would go on to be queen of at Warner Bros throughout most of the 1930s. It's also the sort of movie that is meant to be enjoyed when you need to forget all your everyday worries, just as it was meant to be back in 1931. Essentially it's an unmemorable, fairly average movie, but if you decide to buy into its sincerity and histrionics, there's no better way to spend your time than with Kay Francis and some High Melodrama. </div>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-71381254727543375582020-12-30T13:08:00.080-08:002021-02-16T16:00:59.064-08:00I Want a Divorce starring Joan Blondell - On the Radio!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EAMhXHketUO4L4utWWnfrboXiIHMhsBmlclbIc07mOGPMxtaY7zVsRSbUXtUk1qhpXbsw1Wl0RNy7uOEvOHjY52DBJBy4OzsLA4C0hOKt-8_pqaEMR5NrG4NTr7hyaTxp5d-vjBJfvU/s623/lfcr8m98ttji8r9l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="454" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EAMhXHketUO4L4utWWnfrboXiIHMhsBmlclbIc07mOGPMxtaY7zVsRSbUXtUk1qhpXbsw1Wl0RNy7uOEvOHjY52DBJBy4OzsLA4C0hOKt-8_pqaEMR5NrG4NTr7hyaTxp5d-vjBJfvU/w291-h400/lfcr8m98ttji8r9l.jpg" width="291" /></a></div><br /> “<i>Judge, I want a
divorce!” “Divorce granted!”</i><p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>Judge, I want a
divorce!” “Divorce granted!”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>Judge, I want a
divorce!” “Divorce granted!”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>I want a
divorce!” “I want a divorce!” “I want a divorce!”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>Faster, ever
faster does the divorce mill grind away yesteryear's happiness!”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>Why? Why? Why?
Ask millions!”</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“<i>Listen to 'I Want
a Divorce', the copyrighted program approved by many leaders of
church and state. The program that dramatizes the real life
happenings in other people's marriages”.</i></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">So begins the radio
version of <i>I Want a Divorce </i>starring Joan Blondell, a half
hour series featuring cautionary tales of marital misadventure that ran for
one season on the Mutual network from October 1940 to April 1941.
Each week the show would focus on a hapless mismatched couple with
marriage difficulties, with Joan playing with female lead in a
variety of situations and genres. Sadly, there's not a great deal of
information available about the show and only three of the episodes
appear to exist. It's an unlikely movie spin off considering that the
filmed version opened to poor reviews and box office just a month
before the radio premiere, but one would have to guess that the
guardians of morality saw it as a great opportunity to improve the
minds of the enormous radio audience, using the melodramatic format and
the lure of a genuine Hollywood star appearing each week.</p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">However, it appears
that Joan Blondell was hesitant to take on the show but was
encouraged to do so by husband and radio veteran Dick Powell (who
also appears in an couple of episodes). She ended up enjoying the
experience as it gave her a chance play a different part each week,
sometimes the hero, sometimes the villain all with the hope was that it
would show people that she was in fact an accomplished and versatile
actress. When promoting the show, she remarked:</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">"I have had to stand
on my own feet again. You forget all about real acting in pictures.
You have to concentrate for one minute and then you have perhaps a
couple of hours rest. You have no worries about timing or anything
else, for the directors, the camera men do it all for you. But on
radio you have got to be alert; you have to prepare as well as
execute whatever evolutions the script calls for”</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Despite the versatility
Joan displayed on the show, the radio version of <i>I Want a Divorce
</i>failed to make waves both with listeners and casting directors
and it soon disappeared into obscurity alongside the movie version
with neither helping her career significantly.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">One of the great things
about listening to Old Time Radio is the proliferation of Hollywood
stars making regular appearances in a variety of often unusual
situations. Sometimes you discover previously unheard talents for
comedy or drama and other times you realise that maybe your favourite
star was just not cut out for radio. After all, acting on radio
requires a different skill set from movies or theatre though it is
surprising how many of the stars adapted seamlessly. In the early days, the
worlds of radio and cinema largely kept themselves separate, with comparatively few
making lengthy full time careers in both (Bing Crosby, Dick Powell
and Don Ameche being notable names who did), but before long movie stars were
being courted by the airwaves to helm their own shows. The real boom
for this was in the late 40s and early 50s when A-listers like
Humphrey Bogart (<i>Bold Venture</i>), Cary Grant (<i>Mr and Mrs
Blandings</i>) and Ronald Colman (<i>The Halls of Ivy</i>) and many
others had their own shows (all incidentally co-starring their
wives). Joan Blondell wasn't unique in having her own dramatic radio
series in 1940 but it definitely wasn't yet the norm, and the fact
that she had to be talked into it either shows the lack of money from
doing radio or perhaps a perceived lack of prestige.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABaqodUUEqyt82qvFrx4_dC3ZUc3wCVCq8Otfl4HUZLAUPjGLb0kIQGzlEYJ3PZzKhTVidnonb_NspRCGSAOjguR8OWVRUy6R2fc4lBYrfW_vKVanG3DKfaosfTNEUpfm5r_7gU9vp9s/s688/c369b665fa47035d0f157c6ae0b82480.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="688" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABaqodUUEqyt82qvFrx4_dC3ZUc3wCVCq8Otfl4HUZLAUPjGLb0kIQGzlEYJ3PZzKhTVidnonb_NspRCGSAOjguR8OWVRUy6R2fc4lBYrfW_vKVanG3DKfaosfTNEUpfm5r_7gU9vp9s/w400-h319/c369b665fa47035d0f157c6ae0b82480.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />From the mid 30s to the
early 50s, Joan Blondell was an infrequent radio guest star,
averaging a handful appearances in most years. By no means a familiar
voice on the airwaves she nonetheless made sporadic appearances on
the 'prestige' drama shows such as <i>Lux Radio Theatre </i>and
<i>Screen Guild Theater </i>with their adaptions of current Hollywood
movies. During the Second World War she was heard fairly regularly on
<i>Command Performance </i>and other morale boosting shows on the
Armed Forces Radio Network. She even made a few rare appearances on
comedy and variety shows with the likes of Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson,
Danny Kaye and Edgar Bergan (with Charlie McCarthy of course). All in
all she had a small but solid radio resume which, if it still
survived intact may have been crowned by <i>I
Want a Divorce.</i><p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Of the three existing
episodes, only two currently circulate to listen to online and of
those by far the most interesting is the episode from April 4<sup>th</sup>
1941 entitled “June and Perry”. The story concerns a mismatched
love affair between June Hansen, (“a magnificent specimen, a farm
girl in Wisconsin”) and Perry Hurst (“less than average size, an
artist with an artist's outlook”). She lives with her father, is
“like a Viking” and “loves
the land” but doesn't think much of the local farmers as future
husbands. While out swimming she happens to meet wandering artist
Perry and immediately throws him in the lake, injuring his leg. She
carries the wet and weedy artist home and despite having nothing in
common, soon they are married.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Hard at work on the
farm Perry quickly finds that his artistic hands are losing their
touch with all the manual labour and he starts to hold a grudge
towards June and her ideas. She tells him how art is just a “childish
pastime” and no “business for a grown man”. She makes him
choose between her and painting, saying “I want my husband to be a
man, not a sissy”. Despite her father imploring June to meet Perry
half way, painting wins out and Perry leaves. Later on Perry, now living
in the relative safety of the city, finds out that June is pregnant
so decides to return home to give the relationship another go.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Here the drama pauses for its mid show break (it doesn't appear to have garnered a sponsor), with the format seemingly that the couple
split up in part one and get back together in part two. Next we skip
forward five years and Perry has given up the forbidden art of
painting “bending to June's will” and they now have a son to
bicker over. Immediately we are introduced to their wayward bull Old
Satan and the fact that their son, Jan should <i>never play with him</i>.
This is foreshadowing.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Perry buys his son an
easel, much to Jan's delight (“Oh boy look!...now I can paint just
like a real painter!”). June takes the opposite view and here we
come to the pivotal moment in the play - June's disapproval of her
son becoming an artist. Thus far, Joan Blondell has been fine in the
role of June. She's tripped over a couple of lines, but is trying to
bring a certain physicality and inflexibility to the frankly
unlikeable role. However, here in the most important line of the
show, she fluffs her line completely (or if in fact she's reading the line as written, delivers it so badly as to reverse its meaning), proclaiming “Perry, you
deliberately disregarded my wish. My son is is not going to be <b>a
farmer!</b>” (cue dramatic chords). Wait, suddenly you're fine with him
being an artist? Now, I know that most of these shows were recorded
'as live' but surely some sort of overdub could have been added in
later to save the show? Oh well, let's just move along quietly and
pretend it never happened. Nothing to see here.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Perry wants to
encourage his son to be an artist but June, ever the optimist thinks
it is only teaching him to be an “incompetent kind of a man”
like his father, and will ruin all their lives. Jan shows great talent
but then tragedy strikes! Jan decides to play with Old Satan (while
wearing a red scarf, obviously) and is seemingly crippled by the
brute. June takes the accident with her usual motherly grace, saying
“I'd rather he had died...never to be able to walk or run like
other boys”. Having just wished death on her only son, June
suddenly realises that it's all been her fault and since he can only
use his hands now she will help him to be an artist.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Jan naturally becomes a
great artist with the full support of his mother and June realises
that she is closer to Perry as a result. She even admits that “I
think I begin to feel a little of what you meant when you talked of
'beauty' and 'nature'. It's a little like the love I feel for the
farm”. Of course, this being Hollywood melodrama, Jan gets a last
minute cure that will enable him to walk again just before the
curtain falls and everyone lives happily ever after. The announcer
then sums up what we have learnt tonight -</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">“And so ends
tonight's <i>I Want a Divorce </i>play, emphasising the fact that
sometimes it takes tragedy to awaken us to a true perspective on out
lives”. Also, artists are undersized, underachieving losers who
need to get out and do real work in the fields to earn a woman's
respect. We also learned that <i>I Want a Divorce</i> contains no
divorces! I want my half hour back! Joan Blondell then briefly
returns to the microphone to say that Dick Powell will be her co-star
next week, but unfortunately that episode doesn't exist.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Of course, it's easy to
mock the high handed moralising of <i>I Want a Divorce</i> in both
radio and movie forms but obviously the threat of divorce was
something that concerned the powers that be in the early 40s. In
fact, divorce rates in the United States had been steadily rising
since the end of the Depression, and in 1940 stood at 2 per 1000
people (up from 1.3 in 1933) and peaking at 3.4 in 1947. Naturally, that number was nothing compared to the latter half of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century but it was obviously troubling to the holders of moral
decency. A number of reasons prompted the increase not least of, as
the show highlights, the comparative ease of getting a divorce.
Though it wasn't quite the conveyor belt of approval depicted in the
opening credits, all a couple had to do was show fault in one party
of the marriage. This is a familiar trope of movie melodrama of the
30s and 40s which regularly depicted the spousal abandonment of
affections, cruelty, all manner of cheating and even divorce due to
mental incapacity. As long as one side of the relationship was
“innocent” the divorce could be approved. This gave rise to all
sorts of chicanery and set ups to enable divorce seekers to escape
their relationships. Conversely, if it was found that both parties were
at fault (you know, like often happens in actual real life) then no divorce
was granted and couples just had to grin and bear the crushing
realization that they were stuck for life with someone that they
hated.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBHQ-HUK0y5fH2UyFALYeEM2mf_XtR9oHl29Yb8H9n_Tr13Ipz7xDQ94RzVKFfTg6d33r9i_Au15KOPeyCz0TTpkAp4xVtAaIR-wlIEX_CpD1K0pi4mov5K30MB2BdPQYXYJ9nqKbQuM/s2000/unrs-p1992-03-0399.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1267" data-original-width="2000" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBHQ-HUK0y5fH2UyFALYeEM2mf_XtR9oHl29Yb8H9n_Tr13Ipz7xDQ94RzVKFfTg6d33r9i_Au15KOPeyCz0TTpkAp4xVtAaIR-wlIEX_CpD1K0pi4mov5K30MB2BdPQYXYJ9nqKbQuM/w400-h254/unrs-p1992-03-0399.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Added to all this, the
growing presence of places like Reno, Nevada with its ever dwindling
residency time for a quickie divorce obviously led Hollywood to
consult with those “many leaders of church and state” to see if
something could be done. Of course, Hollywood and its stars had also been doing their bit to popularise the attraction of divorce for the last few decades on and off screen but better late than never I guess. The line that they wanted to impress on
their audience was to stay married. In the other available episode,
Joan Blondell plays a singer who is married to a song writer and due
to their work commitments they separate. At the end they decide to
try again (despite still having the same commitments) and our
announcer summarises that a marriage “in order to survive the
so-called separation test, must have two people who are imbued with
tolerance, understanding and a highly developed sense of logic”.
Well, if they had all that, surely they wouldn't need to separate!<p></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Anyway, despite the
high number of actual happy marriages in society, the radio show
paints a pretty grim picture of relationships. They were just towing
the party line in showing that divorce was not in the interests of
decent society but the 'just make the best of it' approach is kind of
depressing and hardly makes of an entertaining half hour of radio
drama. Again, it's difficult to assess the series as a whole when so
little of it survives, and apparently there was a wide variety of
styles used (the next episode after “June and Perry” appears to
be a comedy about in-laws). What does survive is a prime example of over the top radio melodrama and is fairly entertaining in its own way. It's also just great to hear Joan
Blondell in a different role each week, and so disappointing that we
can't judge whether she proved the range of her acting abilities like she hoped in
the missing episodes.</p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">However, due to being a movie
that precisely <i>no one</i> was asking for a radio version of, <i>I
Want a Divorce</i> has to be regarded as a failed experiment but a
nonetheless curious footnote in radio history. Sadly, though it gave
Joan Blondell 26 weeks of challenging dramatic work, it didn't appear
to do anything to improve the trajectory of her movie career and it
<i>certainly</i> didn't lower the divorce rates.</p>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-10382089003301273082019-11-30T15:02:00.002-08:002021-11-18T16:11:27.325-08:00I Want a Divorce (1940) - So, Marriage Isn't Meant To Be Fun?!
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCxIE8jOOendUpM_RT427Unh-HmqhNPk2Xt9ETKpa3O2SpAWpoRtYluONa31w6oPj-jrF06ZC0PJ9j91d5xbCchKimTLsV91N2f_JcpZN45BAAEa3wgVJ4Ap490e7W6zfP2cGGpTX1n0/s1600/IWAD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="215" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCxIE8jOOendUpM_RT427Unh-HmqhNPk2Xt9ETKpa3O2SpAWpoRtYluONa31w6oPj-jrF06ZC0PJ9j91d5xbCchKimTLsV91N2f_JcpZN45BAAEa3wgVJ4Ap490e7W6zfP2cGGpTX1n0/s400/IWAD.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It takes a brave
celebrity couple to star in a movie called <i>I Want a Divorce</i>,
especially if they are married in real life and the subject of
regular magazine coverage regarding their glamorous relationship.
Joan Blondell and Dick Powell were one such couple and were half way
though an eight year marriage when the movie came out in 1940. Luckily
the reviews were so bad that the film quickly disappeared into
obscurity to the point that when they eventually divorced in 1944 it
was a long forgotten footnote rather than a punchline. Still, a married couple even
entertaining the notion of a movie with such a title in the
notoriously relationship fickle world of Hollywood was surely just
asking for trouble.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>I Want a Divorce</i>
is a strange little film that knows exactly what it wants to say but
can’t settle on the right way to go about saying it. It advertises
itself as a rip-roaring comedy (“A Lovable Wise-Cracking Comedy
Drama!!” declares the poster) but in execution resembles a
particularly pious Public Service Announcement. It’s ninety minutes
of half-hearted attempts at comedy competing with a dreary, bad tempered atmosphere of moralising in which every character is affected in some way by the demon
divorce and most come out of it losing someone they hold dear, if not
more.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The mood is set with
the first scene as Joan Blondell’s character Geraldine walks
through the divorce courts looking for the room where her sister is
campaigning to ditch her husband and have the sort of carefree
lifestyle she has always desired. As Joan walks through the halls we meet
a litany of miserable broken families, from a young girl screaming
“You think dad’s a heel but that doesn’t make me believe it!”
(Her mother’s touching answer: “Oh shut up!”), to a little boy
wailing “I don’t wanna live with you, I want my mommy!”). When
she arrives at the right courtroom we see her sister Wanda, played
with impeccable disdain by Gloria Dickson proclaim that she wants a
divorce because her husband’s occasional criticism has caused her
public humiliation (“He also criticised my clothes!”). Her lawyer
sums up that this despicable act has caused her “great mental
anguish, seriously endangering (her) health”. Divorce granted, next
case!!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Q2LjuHtfUA-tJE64ou3uh-lcTNrEdCzgdmTD4xrOgqyeQS9hXHTy9ZryrwaEImMxCsbrONVDrod-oUsUulNipFbVz74UwLsqv3nyWPSDfFCsJptEgbkVnpHsWWbEE3B9Ifk5LVAudAQ/s1600/IWAD+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="743" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Q2LjuHtfUA-tJE64ou3uh-lcTNrEdCzgdmTD4xrOgqyeQS9hXHTy9ZryrwaEImMxCsbrONVDrod-oUsUulNipFbVz74UwLsqv3nyWPSDfFCsJptEgbkVnpHsWWbEE3B9Ifk5LVAudAQ/s400/IWAD+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All that was needed was
perhaps the wailing sounds of motherless babies cast aside by their
divorce happy parents accompanied by the sounds of lawyers counting
their money and the intended picture of a modern day Bedlam would be
achieved. Divorce is bad. Divorce breaks up families. Divorce makes everyone
miserable. Okay, we get it. So, when exactly does the lovable wise-cracking
comedy start?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Next we meet
the rest of Geraldine and Wanda’s family, namely their grandparents
and Wanda’s son David. These characters are used to hammer home the
message even more as the grandparents have been married forever and
have endless nuggets of homespun wisdom to impart about the sanctity of
marriage, while the son is supposed to be an adorable young scamp (he's not) whose innocence is in peril by the actions of his selfish mother.
Even the now ex-husband David (played with a dignified restraint by
Conrad Nagel) comes across as a good and loving parent brought down
by Wanda’s actions and lifestyle. Inappropriately, Grandma starts
her sermonising the minute the sisters get back from court, telling Geraldine "Divorces don't take long these days. What should I be saying to her, 'Sorry, congratulations or many happy returns?'" When she is told that it seems she got up on the wrong side of bed this morning she replies "Yes and it's the same bed I've slept for nearly 50 years. And with the same man". She's a delightful character.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After that the comedy portion finally begins, and it really wasn’t worth the wait. Joan Blondell and Dick Powell co-starred successfully in many movies
during the 30s but for whatever reason, by the time this film was
made they have little or no chemistry on screen. Joan tries her best,
but Dick (as up and coming lawyer Alan MacNally) just seems to be going through the
motions (honestly, he looks so bored) and it doesn’t help that the
script is so leaden for the majority of the movie that there is
nothing for them to work with. Anyway, events conspire to make our
stars meet and soon they are courting, everything is wonderful and
before we know it they decide to get married. Fittingly the ceremony
itself is a rather mute affair as the camera pans round the group of
friends and family in the church staring furtively as the priest
intones the solemn wedding vows to the blank faced couple. It’s the
furthest thing from the joyful celebration of union, but I guess
that’s the point – marriage is a serious business. Divorce has
even taken the fun out of getting married!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2v_0uh4hsfni8XBMCvmbvltFdjojpijNriwkFKlXDoJrcLUQhlQ8LUIukiYdm6Q-tU0l359NXWMpapba93y8HSbKoQvCNv9MtlvIM6KEfXayftd8NCU0J0ZmuF2RDRzTr1-8QXHo8sw/s1600/IWAD+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="676" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2v_0uh4hsfni8XBMCvmbvltFdjojpijNriwkFKlXDoJrcLUQhlQ8LUIukiYdm6Q-tU0l359NXWMpapba93y8HSbKoQvCNv9MtlvIM6KEfXayftd8NCU0J0ZmuF2RDRzTr1-8QXHo8sw/s400/IWAD+5.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Just in case you really haven’t picked up on the message the movie is trying to impart,
Geraldine and Alan are getting on swimmingly as newlyweds until Alan
gets offered a chance to make more money and rise up the ranks at his
law firm by becoming (gasp) <i>a divorce lawyer</i>! From there the
marriage immediately falls apart, and the legal eagles start circling the
wagons. In the end it takes the suicide of Wanda, inconsolable after
realising the mistake she made, to wake everyone up to the fact that
divorce destroys lives (all part of the lovable wise-cracking comedy
of course). Finally, while Geraldine is in shock, numb at the fact
that her sister has died, Grandma decides to monologue about how it
was all Wanda’s fault and that “She broke a promise she made to
the Lord God almighty. She started something that grew big and evil
and it finally was too much for her”. Grandma continues in this
vein, oblivious to the human cost of the ensuing drama, and indeed her own family. The incessant nagging must have worked though, as the couple reconcile and order restored.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Obviously, times and
attitudes have changed since 1940 and divorce is now no longer a
scourge of society but one would hope that even back then people
would be rolling their eyes at the incessant, heavy handed lecturing in the movie. The movie
shows the worst excesses of the Production Code in action, pushing
message at the cost of entertainment, and even advertising itself as a screwball comedy to do so. Quite what Dick Powell and Joan
Blondell were doing in such nonsense is difficult to understand. Apparently they got a very good financial incentive to come to Paramount but it doesn't appear that bothering about a good script was included in the deal.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The movie is
fascinating mostly for how far it hammers the point home about
divorce and its destructive effects. From the opening court scene
where we see the broken families and hear the obviously fabricated
testimony of the selfish plaintiff, to the juxtaposition of the
happily married grandparents from an earlier simpler time (I guess
divorce was only invented in the 20<sup>th</sup> century) the message
is stay together at all costs. In the key line of the movie, Grandma
tells Geraldine “Getting married isn’t the important thing, it’s
staying married that counts”. In the movie, marriage is about the
long run and the institution is the most important thing. It’s
understandable that they are trying to tell young people to stick it
out throughout good times and bad but the inference is also that if
you are stuck in a broken, unhappy marriage that it’s your lot in
life (and probably your own fault) and you should just grin and bear it. That combined with the frequent
assertion that all a woman needs to be kept in line is a swift slap
(and that men too can be kept in line with a fist or some flying
crockery) gives the impression of a society where being single sounds the
best option. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKLatKTxNM9Hf3IyIloUaQlgOWd5X8R_95QBjLEUA0agtS3ssSngvXKDNaIBq_nSNJYI5LeWmgiWDup2qox6vC8Gm8fVJUvPmHRRXJ3QL6KJIUsFVxArgR3A1oEbY_a7J5Zl1-8sETNg/s1600/IWAD+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKLatKTxNM9Hf3IyIloUaQlgOWd5X8R_95QBjLEUA0agtS3ssSngvXKDNaIBq_nSNJYI5LeWmgiWDup2qox6vC8Gm8fVJUvPmHRRXJ3QL6KJIUsFVxArgR3A1oEbY_a7J5Zl1-8sETNg/s400/IWAD+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If the picture given of
the ideal marriage is bad, then the view of divorce is even worse.
There are two things in particular that the movie saves its disdain
for, two things that it considers the lowest of the low. Firstly it’s
divorce lawyers, who seem to be the pushers in this scenario,
planting the seed of doubt in the minds of the married and making it
so, so easy to take a trip to Splitsville, all the while gleefully
pocketing the cash. When Alan and Geraldine get married, the nuptials
go south the minute he decides to take up with the devil’s brigade
of the divorce lawyer. Though he is saved from this soul destroying
fate in the end, he still feels the need to repent his sins and convert his occupation to good, becoming a “Child Conciliation“ lawyer
and thus putting broken families back together for a living
(presumable whether they wanted to or not). I
hope it’s enough to pay the bills.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The second thing that
raises the ire of the movie is women. Or rather women who <i>dare</i> to
divorce. The movie seems at pains to point out how the
lowest thing a woman can do is file for divorce and break up the
sacred family unit. Though to be fair, no one would want to be married to Wanda in the first place as she is vain and selfish and concocts the divorce plan to
spend less time at home and more in the nightclub. In
reality people get divorced for all sorts of complicated reasons but it’s telling here that the reason is portrayed as almost entirely the fault of
the woman and everyone else suffers for her sins.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, lest we forget
<i>I Want a Divorce </i>is supposedly a comedy and does spend at least a small
proportion of its running time attempting to raise a smile.
Unfortunately because the script can’t decide if it’s a searing
melodrama or knockabout comedy the result is that it’s successful
at neither. Luckily, despite the miserable
atmosphere and the fact it looks for all intents and purposes like a Monogram B picture, it is
saved but a decent cast of reliable faces. As mentioned earlier,
neither Joan Blondell nor Dick Powell are at their best here. It’s
1940, so Joan Blondell is firmly in her brown hair and big
shoulder pads phase (and she wears some extraordinary examples here – I’m
surprised she could get through doors!) but there is the occasional
flourish of the charm that made her famous. In particular a scene
where she asks Grandma about love while waiting for her new beau to
arrive (and fetchingly dressed in a big hat and checked farm girl
outfit). She sighs dreamily as Grandma begins once again to lecture
about marriage then suddenly her face lights up with innocent charm
when she spots Dick Powell approaching. With her big round eyes and
wide smile, for just a brief moment it’s 1934 again. The simple problem with
the comedic sections of the movie is that they are not funny, nor do
they have any remotely comic situations for Joan and Dick to enact. There’s
no one liners, no snappy dialogue and really nothing for the stars to
wring some laughs from. It’s as if the romance sub plot exists to
kill time until the punchline (ie divorce) and thus allow the movie to go back to preaching.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJXnO7TNJCGCurxRjHfkJNzYaqUBc4S3l1c9S0y8-jJBYwBy8V35r0OjBoSp5dY3L3PODNDtJtwMjReUPesdiPHQbK4xCSfzdSl_NqiDu-4JtBHMMzlajZTXF5aUk8jsKpPkDd7xuucwc/s1600/IWAD+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="150" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJXnO7TNJCGCurxRjHfkJNzYaqUBc4S3l1c9S0y8-jJBYwBy8V35r0OjBoSp5dY3L3PODNDtJtwMjReUPesdiPHQbK4xCSfzdSl_NqiDu-4JtBHMMzlajZTXF5aUk8jsKpPkDd7xuucwc/s400/IWAD+3.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The supporting cast do
at least provide some amusing moments, with entertaining appearances
from Dorothy Burgess (a brief but wildly over the top turn as a
Mexican Spitfire type), Louise Beavers (a sensitively played maid)
and a genuinely funny cameo from Roscoe Ates as a summons server.
However it’s the presence of Frank Fay as their jaded friend Jeff
that steals the show. I never thought I’d say this but (whisper)
Frank Fay is by far the best thing in this movie. Obviously it’s no
secret that in real life Frank Fay was a despicable and reviled human
being, an egotistical, alcoholic, racist wife beater, but if it’s
possible to put that aside (and granted it is very difficult) he’s
rather wonderful in <i>I Want a Divorce</i>. Maybe it was the fact
that he hadn’t had a dramatic part in a movie in close to eight years, or that he had finally begun to accept that he was no longer
the star he once was, but his character has a melancholy demeanour
that is quite compelling. He is used entirely for comic relief and constantly on the run from his crazy wife but his
almost punch drunk wistfulness sets him apart from the rest of the
cast. Maybe it was the effects of the booze but he delivers his lines
in an unsteady manner, with a twinkling detachment of a man who
has lived life and takes each day as it comes. It could equally be
seen as a terrible performance given by a man the shadow of this
former self or an actor coming to terms with his mistakes and finally
showing a degree of vulnerability. Either way he’s the most
memorable thing about the movie, which granted, isn’t saying much.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All in all, <i>I Want a
Divorce</i> isn’t a good film, but it’s strangely fascinating for
its mismatched mix of genres and tone, the odd lack of chemistry
between the married leads and the unexpected charm of a much
despised former star. Most of all though the endless moralising and
preaching about the sacred vows of marriage and the utter disdain at
the mere concept of divorce (and especially those who facilitate it)
results in a tone more like the “Red Menace” movies of the late
40s and early 50s. As ever, it was a bit rich
for Hollywood to lecture anyone of the sanctity of marriage, but it’s
always been a 'do as I say not as I do' type of place. Nonetheless the
heavy handedness of the whole enterprise may not particularly unusual for the time but is unintentionally amusing now. Sadly, it's the sort of subject one would expect to see as a short film or perhaps as a programmer produced by one of the Poverty Row studios, not a Paramount movie with two major stars. As such it's a complete waste of Joan Blondell’s talents at a time
where she really could have done with a career boost.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, before I pack
my bags and head to Reno there is a curious postscript to this whole
affair. Despite the film getting terrible reviews and flopping at the
box office, someone, somewhere decided that the general public needed
to know <i>even more</i> about the evils of divorce. Thus was born, <i>I
Want a Divorce</i> the radio show, starring Joan Blondell! Stay tuned
until next time and we shall lift the lid on the sequel of sorts
that no one really asked for.</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-5728683824845987552019-03-26T18:38:00.002-07:002019-03-26T18:38:06.047-07:00The Green Goddess (1930) - George Arliss, Alice Joyce and Warner Brothers Before the Gangsters<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEeE2c47N2ASPp80RNmu7VOU0BZVjU7sxZ8K9JgqG0zWhoQHjZSfwRF3og3effq6FZ6atQixyvodryR9b0rKLSwS4L1P3SbCvDEl5MblNUlv2RLxSylml8usz1mRvDRmpbfjpTaeFEhc8/s1600/The+Green+Goddess+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="220" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEeE2c47N2ASPp80RNmu7VOU0BZVjU7sxZ8K9JgqG0zWhoQHjZSfwRF3og3effq6FZ6atQixyvodryR9b0rKLSwS4L1P3SbCvDEl5MblNUlv2RLxSylml8usz1mRvDRmpbfjpTaeFEhc8/s400/The+Green+Goddess+3.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The Green Goddess</i>
is one of those movies that appears to be fairly commonplace in the
early sound era in that they are obsessed with the British aristocracy and
their affairs. In this instance it positively revels in its Britishness, from
the cast and their clipped accents, to the colonial setting in India
and right through to the “brownface” and casual racism. Filmed in
1929, but not released until 1930 the movie was an adaptation of a
popular 1921 play (which additionally spawned a silent film version in
1923). Watching it today or indeed in 1930 it’s ridiculously stagey
and old fashioned, but does hold a certain Kiplingesque charm that
brings to mind the early output of Ronald Colman and the like. The
play certainly must have been popular in its day as it brought forth
multiple adaptions in film and radio. Orson Welles was seemingly an admirer,
adapting it for stage and radio performances of The Mercury Players and it even
inspired a salad, which is something you can’t say about a lot of plays.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What’s interesting to
me about the movie is with its exotic locale, savage tribesmen,
British stiff upper lipped resolve and general plodding presentation that it’s surprisingly produced by Warner Brothers. MGM maybe,
Fox definitely - but Warner? This is the studio that within a year
would be producing <i>Little Caesar</i> and kicking off a wave of
violence, sex and sin so beloved of Pre-Code movie fans. However,
when you look at Warner Brothers output in 1929 and 1930 it’s clear
that they were a studio still finding its voice (so to speak) in the
world of the talkies.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In fact, while the
studio’s movies from this era include some minor gems, overall it’s
a weird patchwork of genres and styles. There’s biblical epics
(<i>Noah’s Ark</i>), operettas (<i>The Desert Song</i>), historical
biopics (<i>Disraeli</i>), exotic dramas (<i>The Squall</i>) and whatever <i>Golden Dawn</i> is supposed to be. Add to that a raft of
Al Jolson vehicles, a ton of Broadway based fluff starring Alice
White and some attempts at drawing room drama and comedy with the
likes of Dorothy Mackaill and Billie Dove and you certainly have an
eclectic selection. It’s definitely a mixed bag in the days before
Cagney, Robinson and Blondell hit the scene. Yet in the middle of this potpourri of cinematic uncertainty sits Warner Brothers' most bankable and dependable star of the era, George Arliss</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Whilst mostly overlooked
these days, make no mistake about it - George Arliss was a <i>very big
deal </i>in the early 30s. For an industry desperate to achieve
artistic respectability, he provided it in spades. Arliss began his
theatrical career in his native Britain but found virtually all his
success in America. Touring in plays such as “The Devils”,
“Disraeli” and “The Green Goddess” made him a hugely
successful and respected actor in the early part of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century, a position that he used to transition to movies in the early
20s. By the time sound films arrived Arliss, then in his 60s was one
of the unexpected successes of the period. I first realised the power
that he commanded in the industry when I heard his debut on <i>Lux
Radio Theater </i>in an episode from 1938. The hushed tones of
reverence used by host Cecil B. DeMille to introduce him let the
radio audience know in no uncertain terms that they were in the
presence of greatness, and were glimpsing a dramatic talent far beyond the abilities of the average studio player. George Arliss represented
artistic quality and with his extensive stage background, that all
important ‘legitimacy” so craved by certain quarters in Hollywood.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, the mark of
quality surrounding his movies was not just hype. When he signed to
Warner Brothers to make talking pictures starting in 1929 he was
given an extraordinary amount of control over his output, at a level
which possibly no other actor had at the time. He was responsible for
virtually every element of his movies from casting to scripts to set
design and his productions had essentially their own unit on the
Warner lot. Though his movies are now fairly unfashionable, being
largely overwrought historical biographies or adaptions of his
theatrical successes, they were incredibly popular in their day and
brought in a lot of money and prestige for Warner Brothers. It’s
also worth noting that despite his own success he had an undeniable
eye for young talent and cast the likes of Bette Davis and James
Cagney in early roles and took an active part in cultivating and
mentoring new stars. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Even though <i>The
Green Goddess</i> bears all the hallmarks of an Arliss production in
terms of cast, crew and treatment, pretty much everything about the
movie is absolute hokum. There is possibly a serious point to be made
about the role of race, class and colonialism in India submerged
somewhere within the setting but it is lost in a sea of melodrama.
The plot concerns a three British people who crash land their plane
on the kingdom of Rukh (supposedly some Indian province currently
warring with the main government) The Rajah, played by George Arliss
holds them prisoner and intends to execute them in retaliation for
the government executing three of his countrymen for acts of
terrorism. Our plucky heroes must try to escape before the Rajah has
his ‘eye for an eye’ revenge.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For modern audiences
such movies, featuring the otherness of another (usually non-white or certainly non-Western) culture leave a bad taste in the mouth, especially since as in this case
the lead actor is essentially in ‘brownface’ to portray an
Indian. This was not unusual in 1930, and indeed for many, many
decades to come in movies and television. One unfortunately just has
to accept the film for what it is - a product of its time made with
noble intentions and with a small world view that was painfully
unaware of its cultural surroundings. At the very least there is some
discussion of the issue of British colonialism in India which serves
as an attempt to paint the characters in a few minor shades of grey.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Rajah is initially
assumed by the British contingent, and especially the arrogant Major
(played with impassive superiority by H.B, Warner) to be a savage (his line about wanting to get ‘back to
civilisation’ starts relations with the Rajah immediately on the
wrong foot) but is nonetheless erudite, educated and modern. There is
an amusing scene where the Rajah points out this ‘household
cavalry’ and we see a group of misshapen and elderly old codgers,
one of which can’t even stay awake. This makes the British
contingent bristle with satisfaction until at the snap of his fingers
the real soldiers turn up like a modern well-oiled machine (bizarrely
assembling in speeded up fashion). Despite tribal beliefs and idol
worship going on amongst Rukh’s people (hence the titular Green
Goddess who demands appeasement), the locals seem to be a strange
lot, combining every available stereotype of movie tribesmen. The men
carry spears, play the war drums, all the while whooping and
shrieking in a variety of weird outfits. Conversely the women glide
about like concubines in a harem, seductively shaking their hips in a
hand me down 'Dance of the Seven Veils'. Typically with Western
culture’s then-portrayal of the mysterious East, this exotic hodgepodge seems to have no connection with anything remotely Indian. One of the
tribesmen even inexplicably carries a trident! Why he does so is
never explained...</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaFvcRHLsa_Pww2ug7FXajEIWmwRCbtsU0BS610XLKKluC2grAEcIxHTo-kKfhO0f1-IcRUH-VvyUiN7JpP8OGRnvm9cqoQJo3xpNoT1gT5g5iJqNAIa8GiZXp4NiAjvxTDvJmD3bumWY/s1600/The+Green+Goddess+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="608" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaFvcRHLsa_Pww2ug7FXajEIWmwRCbtsU0BS610XLKKluC2grAEcIxHTo-kKfhO0f1-IcRUH-VvyUiN7JpP8OGRnvm9cqoQJo3xpNoT1gT5g5iJqNAIa8GiZXp4NiAjvxTDvJmD3bumWY/s400/The+Green+Goddess+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
While the arrogance of
Hollywood and its cultural view is never taken to task, luckily the
movie at least attempts to tackle the attitudes of the British and
their rule in India. The Rajah refuses to back down on his threat to have his British visitors killed, saying "Asia has a long score against you swaggering lords of creation, and by all the gods I mean to see some of it paid tomorrow" Of course, he has a valid point and the play brings up an interesting moral dilemma. Sadly, when he clasps eyes on the lone white female of the group, this ethical high ground goes swiftly out the window as he becomes another typically lust crazed foreign devil. He then goes out further on the crazy scale by attempting to justify his actions on some eugenic level, "For though I hate the arrogance of Europe, I believe that from the blending of a flower of the East with a flower of the West that the man of the future, the Superman will be born!" Not surprisingly, our flower of the West quickly turns down his advances.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Despite some of the
more dubious elements of the scenario, the movie undoubtedly belongs
to George Arliss. He commands the screen, resplendent in his silken
finery as the sly and arch Rajah and is positively glowing with both
charm and menace. It’s no wonder he is so confident in role having
played it on and off for the better part of a decade. What’s
surprising is how easily, at his first attempt, he adapts to talking
pictures. His performance is assured without being theatrical, adept
at the small moments as well as the large and seemingly at ease with
acting within the new medium. Admittedly Arliss does at times chew
the scenery with his proclamations and he holds a cigarette in the most weirdly off-putting manner - horizontal! Most divertingly, his appearance
and manner immediately brings to mind Kenneth Williams’ tour de force Khasi of Kalabar in <i>Carry On Up the Khyber</i>, but to me that’s
the highest of praise.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The whole production,
while having that certain rough at the edges charm of early sound
movies, still retains a sense of gloss and grandeur. The interiors of
the Rajah’s palace look impressively dressed and the courtyard set
with its enormous thick doors (which I couldn’t figure out if were
real or realised by visual trickery) at times brought to mind hints of
silent Babylonian epics. If this had been made six months earlier one
could easily imagine <i>The Green Goddess</i> being a lush and
expensive silent melodrama of the highest order. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There is a lot
to like in some other members of the cast, most noticeably in the lovely Alice
Joyce as Lucilla, the beleaguered housewife who wants only to be
reunited with her children but who has to put up with the Rajah's creepy advances. Although is it a standard underwritten ‘woman in peril from evil
foreigner’ role which requires her to look anguished and nervous
for most of the film, Miss Joyce succeeds in being quietly
understated and rather charming. Like a lot of
great silent screen actresses, she excels when having to emote and
her ability to use her face gives her character a lot more depth than
perhaps appears on the page. Alice Joyce retired from the screen in 1930 and only appeared in a couple of more movies after
<i>The Green Goddess</i>, which is a real shame as I would have likes to see more of her. However, at her age (a positively geriatric by Hollywood standards 39 in <i>The Green Goddess</i> but still looking delightful), her days as a leading lady were probably over. To be honest, she probably didn't have enough charisma in sound to be a big success, and her persona is definitely that of an earlier more demure era. However, she definitely appeals to my love of seeing silent stars making charmingly serviceable attempts at talking pictures so to me she's just right.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtR0YQtavB2SjCaBCHiGDsrORhpkoqFtMaob4jiR_Khm1wR68fXB-Q-cQhtyfTQgznsFwNGSNdSRA_IdLVilQE0pYZXQe7TnXO5q9z3k32O6PLU4S49bK9tufple6zirGreIzBh1uaKVU/s1600/The+Green+Goddess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="206" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtR0YQtavB2SjCaBCHiGDsrORhpkoqFtMaob4jiR_Khm1wR68fXB-Q-cQhtyfTQgznsFwNGSNdSRA_IdLVilQE0pYZXQe7TnXO5q9z3k32O6PLU4S49bK9tufple6zirGreIzBh1uaKVU/s400/The+Green+Goddess.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A brief mention also
needs to be made of Ivan F. Simpson as the butler Watkins. Again this
was a role he had played with Arliss previously on the screen and on
stage and he oozes menace and class resentment with every pore. He’s
a grubby, bitter little man and expertly brought to life by Simpson,
who would go on to be one of Arliss’ regular stock players. <i>The
Green Goddess</i> attempts, mostly unsuccessfully to say something about
social class but in the scenes between Watkins, the Rajah and the new
visitors the dynamic finds its greatest success. There's a great scene where the captured Brits try to convince him to turn on his master and help them out. They try to guilt him into doing it for the old country and offer him a variety of financial bribes. He remarks that if he's going to do it he's "got to have enough to make a gentleman of me" Without thinking the prisoners all laugh at his nerve. Even though their lives depend on him, they still need to remind him of his place in the world. In the end he double crosses them and so they throw him out a window to his death. I think there's a lesson to be learned there for all of us. If you ever figure it out please let me know.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the end, your opinion of the <i>The Green Goddess</i> depends upon what part you choose to
concentrate on. It’s old fashioned even for 1930, it has some
misguided racial politics, it makes a confusing and ham fisted mess
of untangling British colonialism and class conflict but if you can
choose to overlook this there’s a lot of interesting stuff going
on. Of course, these issues are difficult to get past
but the movie (and the play) are of their time and entertainment and
melodrama are the focus, not outdated social mores. On a technical
and artistic level the movie is mostly above average, presenting a
confident attempt at early sound filmmaking. It also allows a charismatic
veteran actor in George Arliss to set out his stall for what would be a string of
captivating and successful performances that would seal
his legend in the public consciousness (and give Mitzi Green someone to impersonate).</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The movie also shows
Warner Brothers finding their feet at trying to create an identity as
a studio. 'Tales of the British Raj' wouldn’t last long for the studio once they found a successful formula in gangsters, good time girls and
slice of life Depression era grifting. It was no great loss when the likes of <i>The Public Enemy</i> started to be the in-house style for the studio at the expense of stagey nonsense like <i>The Green Goddess</i>. Yet the movie is emblematic of an industry finding its feet and trying different things to see what worked and what didn't. That in itself makes the movies of the early sound era endlessly fascinating. Sometimes they work, sometimes you can generously label it as 'a curio'. If I'm being generous, this one is a curio.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If nothing else, T<i>he Green Goddess</i> ends with one of the best final scenes I can remember seeing. As the Rajah makes a final desperate effort to enslave Lucilla only to be foiled by the cavalry at the last moment he admits defeat, sits down cross legged and lights up a cigarette. Arliss looks at the camera with a twinkle in his eye and says, "Well, well, she'd probably have been a <i>damned</i> nuisance" It almost makes the film worthwhile. Almost, but not quite but I hope at least <i>The Green Goddess</i> made for a tasty salad.</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-91650897977461655272019-01-21T15:23:00.001-08:002019-01-21T15:23:02.257-08:00Screen Snapshots Returns! Hooray!
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEkBmicu8b50T3abM29Zt43jmspW6VGSXsGYgfryplEGrgeH5QAex7b6dRV9KDpjiKeNm7AsDnFHeH8GSyPB5XT38DfaLRowg5hRb0gT_fM12w9270jO-zfQKi_8AJEu_Xnebk0dblb8/s1600/Langdon+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="412" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEkBmicu8b50T3abM29Zt43jmspW6VGSXsGYgfryplEGrgeH5QAex7b6dRV9KDpjiKeNm7AsDnFHeH8GSyPB5XT38DfaLRowg5hRb0gT_fM12w9270jO-zfQKi_8AJEu_Xnebk0dblb8/s400/Langdon+3.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hello 2019!
Wait, what happened to 2018??</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Alas, times have been tough
here at Screen Snapshots over the last year and a half. On this
occasion it’s not because of any fraught personal problems but due
to nothing less than good old fashioned apathy. My issue has been with trying to find a way to communicate what I want to say in
an appropriately informative and entertaining manner. However, my movie
viewing habits have widened considerably since I started this blog,
and though I still concentrate mainly on Pre-Code movies, I don’t
stick to the same favourite stars as much as I used to (can you ever forgive me Cary Grant?). T<span style="font-family: inherit;">he result is
that the number of interesting films I watch is greatly outnumbered
by the amount of average, run of the mill ones. I watch so many
movies that I think are fine, maybe even entertaining – but can I
find anything to say about them? I could try, but I doubt it would be
worth reading. There are enough film reviews out there that just give
a basic plot recap with a thumbs up/thumbs down verdict and I’ve
always strived to give a bit more than that. Regardless of that, the
simple fact is that nothing has really demanded my attention of late.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For example, yesterday
I watched <i>Lucky Night</i>, the 1939 romantic comedy starring Myrna Loy
and Robert Taylor. I quite enjoyed it so I thought about writing a
review. Then I thought more about it and realised that sadly I didn’t
really have anything particularly stimulating to say about the movie. I could say that there were no scenes that grabbed me, no performances
that stole the show and no minor moments of cinematic genius to be
seen.<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> At a push, I could talk about how it
has a tone that shifts all over the place and that there were only a
few fleeting flashes of brilliance from the cast.</span> I still liked it though, but it would be a fairly worthless
blog post. </span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve had a year and a
half of movies like this it seems and as a result I have been gripped
by a sort of movie watching existential crisis. Why can’t I find
the right films to write about? Is it me? Have I angered the movie
Gods? Has the muse left me? Did I ever have it to start with?</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I began to think that
perhaps my love of classic movies was waning, but considering it is
something I still think about on a daily basis I don’t believe that
my passion for the era has diminished. So it’s time for a bit of a
rethink. I still want to write this blog, regardless of whether
anyone actually reads it (and let’s face it, <i>nobody</i> reads this - but
I forgive you, invisible non-existent readers). I’ll have to be a
bit more creative in terms of articles until I find that elusive
movie that piques my interest. I have a ton of 20s and 30s movie and
radio magazines I’ve been meaning to sift through for interesting
titbits of gossip. I also have a really cool piece of Myrna Loy
memorabilia that I’ve been sitting on for years. Oh, did I ever
tell you that my dad went out drinking with Montgomery Clift a couple
of times? And also, isn’t Alice White really great? People need to
write more articles about her.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So I guess there may be
a bit more life in this blog yet. What say we give it another go in
2019? Shall we? .</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(cue furious typing montage starring Lee Tracy as me…)</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-31618209675906722862017-08-09T16:27:00.000-07:002017-08-09T16:27:56.287-07:00Snapshot # 8 - The Savage Girl (1932)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRIye33XFqYG-1dFKknQZVE5spSLAeMtXFQ3yGtvqlXYHsOYY38HpUfqh72Puo5GCK1zfLS237N2dnx6k9sx8N3tRdBriFOJZCMwMjlnP2z5X4pLKPCfRr9TmbjSCOl9fGsLhMiCbSlQ/s1600/savage+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="220" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRIye33XFqYG-1dFKknQZVE5spSLAeMtXFQ3yGtvqlXYHsOYY38HpUfqh72Puo5GCK1zfLS237N2dnx6k9sx8N3tRdBriFOJZCMwMjlnP2z5X4pLKPCfRr9TmbjSCOl9fGsLhMiCbSlQ/s400/savage+girl.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>What is it about?:
</b>An eccentric millionaire hires an intrepid jungle explorer to go
to Africa to catch him some wild animals for his new zoo. While there
they encounter the legend of the White Goddess – a savage girl who
lives wild in the jungle.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet:
</b>Rochelle Hudson, Walter Byron, Harry Myers, Adolph Milar, Ted
Adams and Floyd Shackleford</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera:</b>
Directed by Harry L. Fraser, Written by Brewster Morse,
Cinematography by Edward A. Kull.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b>
I’ve seen plenty Poverty Row movies in my time, and for the most
part they pass the time of day and rarely make an impression. Using
faded stars and journeymen directors, they are simple tales giving
simple thrills, cranked out for an audience that really only came to
see the main feature. In this environment it seems that there was
little need to stand out from the crowd, but against all odds <i>The
Savage Girl</i> does just that. Made by the tiny Monarch Pictures, with a
veteran cast and crew, the movie manages to be both funny and
entertaining. Unfortunately the print currently circulating derives
from the Commonwealth Pictures 1948 reissue and includes a lengthy
disclaimer encouraging the audience to see the movie for the childish
fantasy that it supposedly is. It’s as if by the late 40s such
whimsical jungle adventures were considered a minor embarrassment,
despite the fact that much worse examples of the genre were
continuing to be churned out by even the major studios. I guess it
shows that people have always thought that current movies were the
best and that anything old was dated and silly.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Given that the movie is essentially just a standard jungle adventure, all the usual clichés we would come to expect are ready and
present – stock footage, pith helmets, ferocious animals, jungle drums and spear
wielding natives all make an appearance (not to mention colonialism and
casual racism but sadly that’s to be expected). The difference here
is that <i>The Savage Girl</i> has a collection of interesting characters, a
couple of truly inspired and ridiculous ideas and a script that is at least trying to
overachieve. The result is as good example of a fun and entertaining low budget movie this side of the Hal Roach lot. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The story starts with
veteran explorer Jim Franklin (played by Walter Byron) giving
a lecture to a bunch of well to do gentlemen about his adventures in
the jungle. Franklin confesses that despite his brushes with wild
animals (which he proudly boasts, he only kills in self-defence) he
feels he is “safer in Darkest Africa than in many a speakeasy or
nightclub in this city”. His speech so inspires one of his
listeners, a certain Amos P. Stitch (Harry Myers) that he decides
there and then that he wants to open his own zoo and needs Franklin
to stock it with animals. When asked why he replies “I want to be
different!” It should also be noted that Stitch is very, <i>very</i>
drunk, to the point that he thinks a stuffed animal head on the wall
is talking to him. Franklin, though initially uncomfortable, agrees
to his proposal and before you can say “So this is Africa!” they
are in the jungle and saying “So this is Africa!”. Along the way
Stitch manages to bring a taxi driver and his taxi as well as a
collection of mice for his grand experiment – to see if elephants
are actually afraid of mice. At this point you realise that the
character of Amos Stitch wasn’t just drunk in the opening scene,
he’s drunk 24 hours a day (in fact later on when he gets up first
thing in the morning from his tent, he’s still drunk – that must
be some powerful moonshine!)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf68D30IJwp4H5zUbAd2P3UDfn2w6ZUqM4qZvxeUjOwoZccjxHH9wklrrAPb35R0xumm5qw64G_6XWU0FTRqplni_YT7GjYahD9ihwu46vCcK9yja75V1Hykg_4YMIUCyejliFFWuo_UA/s1600/savage+girl+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf68D30IJwp4H5zUbAd2P3UDfn2w6ZUqM4qZvxeUjOwoZccjxHH9wklrrAPb35R0xumm5qw64G_6XWU0FTRqplni_YT7GjYahD9ihwu46vCcK9yja75V1Hykg_4YMIUCyejliFFWuo_UA/s400/savage+girl+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once there, they learn
from Dutch explorer Alec Bernouth (Stitch: “Did you say Vermouth?”) the
legend of the White Goddess, a figure of mystery worshiped by the
native tribes. Before long we meet our Savage Girl, only to discover
that she’s actually fairly tame. She’s pretty, very well dressed
(by jungle loincloth standards) and kind to animals (she can talk to
them too it seems). This proves to be her undoing as she is tricked
into falling down a hole while attempting to free some of her captured jungle
friends from their safari cages.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once apprehended, it
doesn’t take long for her to catch the eye of the men on the
expedition, and she soon finds herself fighting off the unwanted
attentions of a drunken and lecherous Bernouth (“She’s white,
she’s beautiful, she’s warm, she’s smooth” he intones
creepily). Luckily heroic Jim Franklin appears in time to save the
day but even he has to muster all the stiff upper lip he can to
resist her charms. In the end he sets her free and she runs off,
pausing to look back in a sultry manner before climbing a tree and
swinging off on a vine (and if you’re going to make a memorable
exit, that’s the way to go). Later they meet again and she tries to
kiss him, which elicits the classic line (deadpanned perfectly by
Walter Byron) “You can’t do this you know - what would Walter
Winchell say if he heard about it!” It’s quite interesting
watching Byron in his scenes with Rochelle Hudson as he often seems
quite flustered and in fact stumbles over his lines on more than one
occasion. It’s doubtful that this is a reflection of his acting
skills (which are admittedly fairly average) but instead I’d like to
think more likely a commentary on how tongue tied one could get doing
a love scene with the delectable Miss Hudson!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The rest of the movie
is spent dealing with Amos Stitch’s historic mouse and elephant
experiment. Once again, the fact that Stich is drunk and staggering around while attempting
it just makes an already bizarre scene even stranger. Afterwards,
fully vindicated he gleefully declares “Get mousie a steak when we get
back to the hotel!” Truly, that mouse deserves to be recognised by
science as much as Pavlov’s dog. The whole yarn enters its final
reel when Bernouth starts to rabble rouse the natives and our hero is
(predictably) tied to a stake awaiting sacrifice while the tribe does
its war dance. The end arrives in lightning fast fashion and involves
a taxi ride through the jungle, natives frightened by loud noises and a man being suddenly
dragged through a window by a gorilla. The Girl finally embraces Jim
and is tamed – a savage no more! </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghTUuyo3PscKembqxn9i-wgSP0JDIBpvwbg_hGRhRlJFXoAsJxD58hoUZZ2ray8atsDPHAlb48t07DdtXXlSG9DEeosShigdjgTiLUEXSramaZhVSZdrCwMn6IpJi-sPLs5Aj0dmaA4dk/s1600/Rochelle+Hudson.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="500" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghTUuyo3PscKembqxn9i-wgSP0JDIBpvwbg_hGRhRlJFXoAsJxD58hoUZZ2ray8atsDPHAlb48t07DdtXXlSG9DEeosShigdjgTiLUEXSramaZhVSZdrCwMn6IpJi-sPLs5Aj0dmaA4dk/s400/Rochelle+Hudson.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances:
</b>The cast across the board give energetic performances and all
look like they are enjoying themselves and making the most of the
action. Rochelle Hudson naturally gets most of the attention as she
is suitably alluring and mysterious in a way that belies her young
age (it’s quite incredible to think she’s only 16 in the movie as
her looks and screen presence tell an entirely different story). She
manages to convey the innocent and feral nature of her character quite well
and uses her body language (I’m guessing she had a background in
dance given the graceful and fluid way she moves) to suggest a life spent with the jungle animals. She doesn’t have
many lines but her hesitant understanding of English is quite
endearing, showing her naivety having lived apart from other humans.
Far from being a mere Tarzan knock off (which unashamedly the movie
attempts to be), Rochelle Hudson has a charm and poise that gives the
movie another reason to shine brighter than the average Poverty Row
filler.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rochelle Hudson may be
the most attractive element of the movie but mention needs to be made
of the comical performance of Harry Myers as Amos P. Stitch. Myers
made the movie relatively fresh from his memorable appearance in 1931 as the eccentric
millionaire in Chaplin’s <i>City Lights</i> (though he filmed his part in
1929) and here riffs on that role. Sadly, in 1932 Myers' career was beginning to slow down and he was generally finding only smaller, often uncredited
parts (despite a respectable career as a star comedian and
director in the early silent era) In <i>The Savage Girl</i> he clearly relishes the chance
to have a starring role and makes the most of it. It’s one of those
performances that is so assured and so full of great comic timing
that it makes you wonder why he never got more work. I suppose his
plight is similar to that of any number of veteran comic players from
the silent era who never got to fully show what they could do on a
big stage (for example most of the Hal Roach stock company or
perennial comic foils such as Vernon Dent or Stanley Blystone). Here he plays the sort of role that a man of his
experience could do in his sleep, and like a true pro makes it
hilarious and appealing, milking the full comic potential out of
every situation. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWpqcgX7xDUe-04Fv_9RWz6Vhka61rLWqoG8YxrVKgqkOw6cb1mUN0EVICHA3q2tLEk2C9xgjAmzGKMJNFtrrYb2sLKMucK4ekm-C-DfGZxetMMeBxNmG-FHNp2Csrv55_KVhE760N28A/s1600/savage+girl+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWpqcgX7xDUe-04Fv_9RWz6Vhka61rLWqoG8YxrVKgqkOw6cb1mUN0EVICHA3q2tLEk2C9xgjAmzGKMJNFtrrYb2sLKMucK4ekm-C-DfGZxetMMeBxNmG-FHNp2Csrv55_KVhE760N28A/s400/savage+girl+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical
Excellences: </b>As would be expected, there’s not a lot of 'High
Art' going on in <i>The Savage Girl</i> but what does make the screen is
filmed competently and edited to make the 60 minute duration fly
swiftly. The director Harry L. Fraser was a veteran of many westerns
but had tried his hand at most genres. He would go on to direct and
write a number of movie serials and seemed to have a talent for
scripting them, since a lot of the better ones are from his pen. A
great advantage of <i>The Savage Girl</i> is its use of primarily real
location rather than being studio bound like many low budget jungle
capers. Obviously the African jungle looks more like a park somewhere
in New York but the locations are chosen well enough not to
completely lose credibility. Even the use of stock footage works
pretty well and integrates into the action better than most.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>The
best thing about the movie is its silly ideas. It’s as if the
writer said to himself “What would happen if one of our central
characters was drunk…<i>all the time</i>?”. From that revolutionary
brainwave sprung the peculiar sort of madness and whimsy that the
movie exudes in which every basic action can be rewritten with the
question “Now what would that be like if our hero was drunk?”. It
could be quite a fun game – take the plot of any well known film
and rewrite the script following the logic of a pie-eyed protagonist.
Some movies would actually benefit from this approach! Everything that Amos P. Stich does
is off the cuff and a result of his constant inebriation. He hears a lecture
about African safaris, and immediately leaves on the next boat to
Africa. His taxi driver says he wants to go to Africa, and so he
takes the driver and his taxi on the boat with him. Best of all he
suddenly decides that he needs to discover if elephants are afraid of
mice, and goes about it like it is going to be the scientific
discovery of the century (“The National Geographic will hear from
you!” he triumphantly tells one of his mice). The inclusion of the
character and his silly schemes is what lifts the movie from the less
than ordinary to the slightly above ordinary, and the fact that the
cast and director manage to deal with such preposterous material in a
relatively straight faced (or sober, if you will) manner just adds to
the overall fun of the movie.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>The
whole film is ridiculous, but in a good way that adds to the
enjoyment. However, from a logic point of view (and with a movie like
<i>The Savage Girl</i>, logic very rarely enters into the equation so I don’t know
why I even bring it up) some things are more ridiculous than others.
First and foremost is the titular ‘Savage Girl’. Now, sadly I was
not raised in the jungle Tarzan style but I know that even in a movie
jungle I wouldn’t last long. Quite how Rochelle Hudson made it five
minutes in the green hell is a mystery. When we first see her, she is
cuddling some leopard cubs and seems to understand monkey language,
which are both great jungle goddess skills to have (she also seems to
have great jungle goddess skills in makeup and hair considering she
is immaculately turned out despite probably living full time in a
tree). However, some of her other survival abilities are a bit
lacking. She screams at a leopard as if she has never seen one before
(maybe it wanted its cubs back?) and thus gives herself away to
the party of explorers. What’s more she is eventually trapped by
being attracted to a shiny thing (aka a mirror) attached to a branch, which causes
her to fall into a freshly dug hole. One would think that she would
be fully acquainted with shiny things given the obvious amount of
time she spends applying her foundation every morning in the mirror,
but perhaps her jungle compact had become worn and dull from so much
use. Anyway, as ridiculous as the movie is, the idea that somehow she
is the mythical White Goddess that inspires awe and fear in the local
tribesmen is a bit farfetched since she seems scared of the (fully
grown ) animals and can’t see a large trap staring her in the face.
In fact, her character brings up more questions than answers. Sadly, and not unexpectedly
the movie spends absolutely no effort in answering any of them.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth
watching?: </b>If you like low budget jungle adventures (and let’s
face it, who doesn’t?) then this is a superior example of the genre
and about as good as you are going to get until the advent Monogram a
decade later, <i>The Savage Girl</i> has a rather charming touch of whimsy that
is highly unusual for a Poverty Row picture and this combined with a frisson of Pre Code raunch, a solid
cast of character actors and the delectable Rochelle Hudson in a
leopard skin, the whole affair is an overachieving delight. There are
certainly worse ways involving gorillas to spend 60 minutes of your time.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote: </b>“Keep
away from men. We’ve all got a little of the tramp in us”</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-64019922177554617352017-02-17T16:38:00.002-08:002017-02-17T16:38:37.251-08:00Mary Brian - The Real Talent of "The Sweetest Girl in Pictures"
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ25eYUbq2SsN7maaxp0nCB3QJS_SgIQCLhJKa1Np0KRH81Vj08_C4Jl-hvP3DfO1NAcG6mfXjvfZZyT5dxMWmtGq9tz5kpdmRWNQ3_fAXKNgx_rjvnlME4HfHlOhmNuB7eOGfqe1QmTA/s1600/Mary+Brian+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ25eYUbq2SsN7maaxp0nCB3QJS_SgIQCLhJKa1Np0KRH81Vj08_C4Jl-hvP3DfO1NAcG6mfXjvfZZyT5dxMWmtGq9tz5kpdmRWNQ3_fAXKNgx_rjvnlME4HfHlOhmNuB7eOGfqe1QmTA/s400/Mary+Brian+7.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Given the moniker of
“The Sweetest Girl in Pictures”, lovely Mary Brian was the perfect 20s
ingénue with her long dark hair, adorable good looks and graceful manner. She was girlish and innocent when that was the fashion, and smart and sophisticated when tastes matured. Yet she remains a
difficult actress to truly define as she was never quite a leading actress, far more than a juvenile lead and never tied herself to one particular style or genre. As the film historian Anthony Slide
put it, she was a “competent, intelligent, and compliant actress who
exudes a natural charm and personality” Slide, a close friend of
Brian in her later years meant it as the highest compliment, yet this
summation of her career seems lacking in the usual hyperbole and
platitudes typically given to stars of the Golden Age. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Make no mistake about
it, Mary Brian was a very big star with a extremely successful career as a marquee
headliner from 1925 through to the mid 30s and unlike many of her contemporaries transitioned from silent to
talking pictures with an enviable ease. During her career she starred with acting heavyweights like Wallace
Beery, Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, James Cagney and W.C. Fields and
worked with top level directors such as Lewis Milestone, Gregory La Cava,
William Wellman and George Cukor. She even had a leading role in an
Oscar nominated movie but despite these stellar accomplishments, like so many others, she is sadly still
often overlooked and underappreciated.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mary Brian was born
Louise Datzler on February 17 1906 in Corsicana, Texas, the daughter
of an oculist. Her father died in an accident when she was one month
old and the family then moved to live with her aunt, eventually following her from the prairies of Texas to Long Beach, California in the early 20s. Mary received
her big break into the movies when she was spotted by silent star
Esther Ralston at a Bathing Beauty contest and through that
connection managed to get an audition with the director Herbert
Brenon. Despite having little to no experience in acting, Brenon
asked her to play Wendy in his forthcoming adaption of 'Peter Pan'.
Soon Louise Datzler was signed to a five year Paramount deal and
rechristened Mary Brian and a new star was born.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCxj1twaPSBuvpOQzPoWL3hoBCuTsP0HQK2hfNaMuPMheDLsYkF4otBOUY3inSA817sY05LZ_Qh_UJUU-RJpoOyJUAnI8Ea9q-CB1RhYkFMrOceO9n9Ct0dUWIK3BvfrCMYMBsWVRof4/s1600/Mary+Brian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgCxj1twaPSBuvpOQzPoWL3hoBCuTsP0HQK2hfNaMuPMheDLsYkF4otBOUY3inSA817sY05LZ_Qh_UJUU-RJpoOyJUAnI8Ea9q-CB1RhYkFMrOceO9n9Ct0dUWIK3BvfrCMYMBsWVRof4/s400/Mary+Brian.jpg" width="285" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
From the very beginning in her successful 1925 debut in
<i>Peter Pan</i>, Mary Brian was a popular
young leading lady in Hollywood. Her status as a rising star was cemented when she was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926 alongside future greats such as Joan Crawford, Janet Gaynor and Fay Wray. Sadly, very few of her silent films
still exist today which is perhaps one of the reasons why she is primarily
remembered for her 30s work despite making more than 20 silent movies
as a leading actress. Among her most popular movies in the silent era
were the football comedy <i>Brown of Harvard</i> with William Haines,
adventure epic <i>Beau Geste</i> with Ronald Colman and William Powell and
<i>Behind the Front</i> with Wallace Beery, the first of four pictures she
made with him. She also become a trusted friend of W. C. Fields and
starred with him in two of his silent movies, <i>Two Flaming Youths</i> (sadly
lost) and <i>Running Wild</i>. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By the time sound came
in, Mary Brian was a mainstay at Paramount and was soon rushed into making a talking picture. Her first, a part
talkie, was <i>Varsity </i>(also now lost) with her friend and frequent co-star Charles
‘Buddy’ Rogers in 1928. She soon followed it up with a well
received turn in <i>The Virginian</i> with Gary Cooper that proved to be a break out role establishing her as a successful sound actress (it didn't do too badly for Cooper's career either). In the early sound era she also lit up the screen in <i>The Royal Family of Broadway</i> (a not so subtle poke at the
Barrymore acting clan) and the Oscar nominated fast talker <i>The Front Page</i>. Both roles continue to be fondly remembered today and show her to be a talented and resourceful actress. Despite these triumphs,
in 1932 Paramount decided not to renew her contract, choosing instead to move
away from the sort of ingénue roles she played to more
‘sophisticated’ fare. Since playing the sort of Mae West and Marlene Dietrich roles preferred by the studio was not her scene, Mary freelanced for the rest of her
career.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This post 1932 period brought
some memorable roles but the good parts began to slowly dry up. Nevertheless she still made some great films in this time
such as <i>Blessed Event</i> with Lee Tracy, <i>Girl Missing</i> with Ben Lyon and
Glenda Farrell and <i>Hard to Handle</i> with James Cagney, perhaps her last
great film (though she sports atypical platinum blonde hair which doesn't really suit her natural beauty). However, B pictures started to appear more and more on
her resume and the A list co-stars became replaced more often than
not by the likes of Leo Carrillo, Dick Purcell, Jack Oakie and Richard Arlen
(though in the end Arlen became her most frequent co-star, they made
an astonishing 11 films together between 1926 and 1933). After that Mary worked in theatre and then during the Second World War tirelessly devoted her time to entertaining the troops
with the USO. Her last movie appearance was in the Poverty Row crime drama <i>Dragnet</i> in
1947, and save for a brief television comeback in the 50s Mary then
retired to devote herself to her family and her painting.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oQQe3yeW6O6JhLknSra0wo3OZ5D69yJp33zFvT2xUY0hJEtp9W0yK5PeLb8qpWjLQNrXoycqxeclCiAXDCLSDInl1Dh4Pmk-b0W9F4UApXss5ST-fZKjfEHqZghaK_dSJqgnS0p8xaU/s1600/Mary+Brian+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1oQQe3yeW6O6JhLknSra0wo3OZ5D69yJp33zFvT2xUY0hJEtp9W0yK5PeLb8qpWjLQNrXoycqxeclCiAXDCLSDInl1Dh4Pmk-b0W9F4UApXss5ST-fZKjfEHqZghaK_dSJqgnS0p8xaU/s400/Mary+Brian+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I’ve always likes
Mary Brian immensely since she first caught my eye in <i>The Marriage
Playground</i>. There she plays the oldest of a large group of children
living with their rich, disinterested parents. Despite being incredibly pretty
and the camera simply loving her, she was still overshadowed by her co-stars
Fredric March, Lilyan Tashman, Kay Francis and particularly Mitzi Green. Next up was
<i>Blessed Event,</i> a newspaper caper where she generally stands around while Lee Tracy
blitzes the screen with his incendiary delivery and presence. She
still looks incredibly pretty though. More recently I watched her in
<i>Girl Missing</i> where she plays one half of a crime solving team of gold
diggers with Glenda Farrell. The movie has a tour de force
performance from Farrell, who commands the screen and gets all the
best lines. Mary gamely hangs in there and gives capable support but is
really only there to provide a romantic subplot with Ben Lyon. Finally, a
couple of weeks ago I watched <i>Charlie Chan in Paris</i>. To be honest, I don’t even
remember what she did in the movie and in fact I have no memory of
her even being in it. It appears that by that time (1935) she had almost disappeared into the background entirely. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Going back to Anthony
Slide’s earlier words, what at first seemed like faint praise is
actually a perfect summation of her talent. She truly is “competent,
intelligent and compliant” – a true professional whose role in
movies was to be the featured actress there to support a star impeccably without
smothering them. Additionally she <i>definitely</i> has “charm and
personality”, yet never to the point that detracts from her afore
mentioned purpose. What first struck me about Mary Brian was her
everyday fresh faced looks and simple style that lived up to her moniker “The Sweetest Girl in
Pictures”. She was a girl next door, or a beloved big sister - dependable and gracious, at times streetwise but never brash or rude. This quality, especially when paired up with a larger than life co-star made her believable in her roles and equally trusted by
audiences. There is an honestly and charm to Mary Brian that is real
and very appealing and could quite easily hold a film together
despite being paired with large personalities.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWqUiLdgK9APqoYkcH_9NFwYSKPyZuBhriSKNW1P_cJ-PoredDuP2AyYEJx60zzi8xBE3UwLj48pKmSRxCNsUM7-uCQC7CHvZDlwfwa1B3ea_bEsZd2n9Wt-zJxTGKXWfOUREQs9dCOQ/s1600/Mary+Brian+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOWqUiLdgK9APqoYkcH_9NFwYSKPyZuBhriSKNW1P_cJ-PoredDuP2AyYEJx60zzi8xBE3UwLj48pKmSRxCNsUM7-uCQC7CHvZDlwfwa1B3ea_bEsZd2n9Wt-zJxTGKXWfOUREQs9dCOQ/s400/Mary+Brian+8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For this reason it’s
no wonder that she was so revered by W. C. Fields and was requested
by him to play his daughter in one of his best films, <i>The Man on the
Flying Trapeze</i>. Throughout the film she is the one person who not only
stands by Fields’ character and defends him but who holds together
the chaos that he brings. She once said of him “He knew he could
count on me to do certain things and never look as if I don’t know
what it is. A comedian depends on a straight man…their timing
depends on what you feed them” The fact that she could work so
easily with a comedian as spontaneous and unpredictable as Fields and
not only keep up with him but feed him exactly the reactions he
needed speaks volumes about Mary Brian’s talents more than perhaps any one performance. Just like her
work with Lee Tracy, Glenda Farrell and James Cagney (and it can’t be a
coincidence in her freelancing years that she was hired out to team
up with the three fastest talkers in Hollywood) being the straight
man is a vastly underrated skill that is essential to the success of
the other part of the equation. And if you can do all that and look
lovely while you are doing it...well, then that is even better.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Again, when reading
reviews of <i>The Front Page</i>, with its constant chatter and cross talk,
you very rarely hear anything said about Mary’s performance in the
movie. In a way it means she has done her job and let the others
shine despite not always getting to show her own skills so
prominently. Watching the movie and particularly her performance, she is adept at stunned reactions and timing her feed lines to let the rhythm of the dialogue flow. Of course the problem with being a good straight man is
that if the parts across from you are not very well written or
performed than your own role is diminished too. Sadly this happened
all to often in Mary’s career in its later years where she just
turns up and looks pretty (like the afore mentioned Charlie Chan
film) or even worse just stands about doing nothing as the nominal
romantic interest in a dull picture. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRGS70LSapstoJEZH76O8wjjPuV3srwgEayg82ZgOHibgHaHUDv6YY_9K_090W9d-4GNR52NItmyfCHQF1eUOxSRPC73opRJD8FES_hWimWvNx8h1i1RpWcnR4UrpOrRma6fX4MM_UyhA/s1600/Mary+Brian+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRGS70LSapstoJEZH76O8wjjPuV3srwgEayg82ZgOHibgHaHUDv6YY_9K_090W9d-4GNR52NItmyfCHQF1eUOxSRPC73opRJD8FES_hWimWvNx8h1i1RpWcnR4UrpOrRma6fX4MM_UyhA/s400/Mary+Brian+2.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sometimes in the case of comedy
double acts I wonder what would have happened if one of the pair
had made solo films or worked as character actor. Would Bud Abbott have managed to show
more of his comic range (so tantalisingly hinted at in <i>Little Giant</i>)? George Burns certainly flourished when he went solo though it
took him a while to truly find his voice. In the case of Mary Brian,
ever the perfect sounding board for actors and actresses to bounce off,
would she have been successful if given Joan Crawford or Carole
Lombard level parts? Given her talent and adaptability I have no
doubt that she would have been wonderful but in cinema, just like in
life we each have a role to play and Mary Brian’s role seemingly was to help
others shine. It was often became a thankless job but one that she was
supremely gifted at. At her best, Mary Brian was a radiant, charming talent that had a likeability and connection with audiences that made her a popular favourite for over a decade. Despite sharing the screen with
bigger personalities or nearly disappearing into the background with sub par
scripts, Mary Brian with charm and grace always gave it her all and made us believe in her, and for me will always be
one of the brightest stars in Hollywood. Happy birthday Mary!</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-22890142072058094402017-01-18T17:17:00.001-08:002017-01-18T17:17:38.319-08:00The Look of Oliver Hardy - Happy 125th Birthday Babe!
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnoTwRdFXM6SQP8Akgy-ahUGsZjpYM9TWgK3BcccrBxTjoCFoMZ5V4xKowFiqcNQd1BdEZ5ftRwXYzWV-DKoCksGuIHbX0IorV5Gb3eI4p2ADgpzTzvue72qCzpHuQ0OJ-262BxkDaLGc/s1600/oliver+hardy+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnoTwRdFXM6SQP8Akgy-ahUGsZjpYM9TWgK3BcccrBxTjoCFoMZ5V4xKowFiqcNQd1BdEZ5ftRwXYzWV-DKoCksGuIHbX0IorV5Gb3eI4p2ADgpzTzvue72qCzpHuQ0OJ-262BxkDaLGc/s400/oliver+hardy+2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
A couple of years ago I wrote a short piece on the occasion of Stan Laurel's 120th birthday. I mentioned my eternal gratitude to him for all the laughs he has given me and that if it were not for him, I would not be the film fan (or the person) I am today. Of course, Stan deserves every plaudit he receives, but he would be the first to admit that all those accolades need to be equally given out to Oliver Hardy. When I was a child, Stan was my favourite and he made me laugh until I was sick with his clowning. My dad would always tell me that Ollie was his favourite and he would try unsuccessfully to convince me that Hardy was the real funny one, not Stan. Of course, we were both right and wrong. Stan and Ollie can't be viewed separately, they are entwined forever, parts of an infinitely funnier whole. However, one thing has changed as I have gotten older - I have taken my father's advice and now spend most of my time (as Stan did), just watching Oliver Hardy and his pitch perfect comic timing. His expressions, body language and mannerisms are an exquisite thing of beauty, a talent so expertly judged that it is at times breath taking how good Hardy is as a comic actor. He is the glue that holds the partnership together, and in his soulful eyes and gentle voice is the heart and soul of the duo.<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Yet despite all this, what really makes Oliver Hardy a true screen immortal is 'the look'. It's often just a simple, incredibly brief
raising of the eye and the tiniest glance at the audience but it's enough to make all the difference. Once you catch it the
connection is made and throughout the Laurel and Hardy movies, Ollie
will forever become your guide through the many trials and pitfalls of life with the two
friends. Hardy’s glances at the camera probably started in an
effort to highlight the roles each of them often play – that of
Stan the child and Ollie the exasperated parent but they ended up becoming so much more. Of course their
actual roles are more complex but it’s interesting (and perhaps a
reason for their longevity) that children watching tend to identify
strongly with Stan then grow up to be adults their own
responsibilities that Ollie represents. Whereas Stan wanders through
life aimlessly, following in the footsteps of his pal, it is Ollie
who tries to better himself by his misguided attempts to integrate with
everyday society, whether it be marriage, a job or a new skill. Ollie
tries to be a successful adult but due to a combination of Stan’s
ineptness and his own ego, he always fails. And that is where his
look makes all the difference.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglT_MQ58OIdfGpnSfcJS1zNhLvVs2UTPDKrQ0MNQ76X_5IGb27Pwznsc-fFFwjJ-Lr3Ox-wR6b9vqxf-5ZTIwtKtAwtTcDnifjMDK_an_m8VkAOUeOR5K08xNF8IlLXTg-DMdLyJian8c/s1600/oliver+hardy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglT_MQ58OIdfGpnSfcJS1zNhLvVs2UTPDKrQ0MNQ76X_5IGb27Pwznsc-fFFwjJ-Lr3Ox-wR6b9vqxf-5ZTIwtKtAwtTcDnifjMDK_an_m8VkAOUeOR5K08xNF8IlLXTg-DMdLyJian8c/s400/oliver+hardy.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Surely there is no one
in screen history that can cause accidental destruction on a scale with Ollie
(of course all triggered by Stan first). Ollie doesn't merely slip on a bar of soap and fall over, he slips, stumbles and falls on to a bed which violently collapses causing a tremor which brings down all the fittings in the room with a near explosion of chaos. Ollie doesn't merely get his feet wet in a puddle, he falls down a six foot hole that the puddle disguises (Stan walks though undisturbed, obviously). And when Ollie falls down a chimney, there's always an endless supply of bricks waiting to fall on his head, seemingly suspending the laws of physics especially in order to extend his suffering (and there's always <i>one last</i> brick when he thinks it all over). Simply put, often through little fault of his own Ollie is a walking disaster of epic proportions. It's cruel but his plight makes us laugh, such is the way of slapstick. However, as we watch him flounder, Hardy pulls one of the most singularly brilliant and audacious comic touches in motion picture history, <i>he looks back at us</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Better writers than me could probably wax eloquently all day about the emotions contained in one of Ollie's looks to camera. Suffice to say, there is a lot of variety in his looks - he uses different ones for different situations (one of the best is after Stan says something nonsensical, he tends to do the briefest of double takes, with his eyes! Try doing that in front of a mirror). The most affecting though, happen after one of his frequent falls down a chimney/out a window/out the side of a boat/ down a large flight of stairs etc. He stares at the camera, and in that brief intimate moment we truly feel his pain, his frustration and most of all his essential goodness. It's a wonderful connection that just extends the field of goodwill that Laurel and Hardy endlessly project
and makes me love them even more. Ollie's desperate glances may convey momentary exasperation with Stan, but we know that it is temporary and their friendship will be repaired in no time (or until the next mishap).</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSrfS2XsEMRa0DtcwxIa7dWv2-l74ozGD83rdbN5h9M9kPEXMlDUaEJ7HwWucKLvmgloQnkhl9VHqa39MItGVmm8B424Z5lx84jpr5UXhRFYPFGp9CwfX7Bp3kWAtydSzd8m9F3jklQMM/s1600/oliver+hardy+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSrfS2XsEMRa0DtcwxIa7dWv2-l74ozGD83rdbN5h9M9kPEXMlDUaEJ7HwWucKLvmgloQnkhl9VHqa39MItGVmm8B424Z5lx84jpr5UXhRFYPFGp9CwfX7Bp3kWAtydSzd8m9F3jklQMM/s400/oliver+hardy+3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's been said many times how the humanity of Laurel and Hardy is what sets them apart from all other comedy teams. There is a graciousness, a respect and a real affection between the two friends, and as someone once said (it may have been John McCabe), they really are two gentlemen and 'gentle men'. A huge part of the believability of this relationship was of course the real life relationship between the pair, but to me it's always been Ollie and his weary looks to the audience that made me truly understand their humanity. They transcend the decades, and bring us closer to these two funny men from a time before any of us were born. And as I mentioned earlier, this is all a testament to Hardy's beautiful timing and unparalleled ability as an actor.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As Kurt Vonnegut once remarked "There is terrible tragedy there somehow. These two men are too sweet to survive in this world". This could be true but Ollie takes the burden of worry from us, looks back at us for a brief moment, then gets back up, puts on his battered bowler hat and starts all over again. He is reassuring us that things are alright, and indeed we all feel better for it. His look is a beautiful, sincere gesture from a talented comic master. For all that Stan Laurel means to me, Oliver Hardy means just as much. Comedy, tragedy and humanity are hard skills for most actors to master but Ollie can do it with a look. Just watch for that final brick though... </div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-37505137921623034042016-11-20T16:07:00.000-08:002016-11-20T16:07:08.855-08:00Snapshot # 7 - Hell's Highway (1932)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElmdRnIhrjMDZrDtUTSb9ETXA0Gk2mg1bpWnAd_SFwEl37DD3eF8RSpCAc3XDgIAVaxLXm7pMuJSfWYZw3nNSzjWed83E0vjx86F9roShPmGT7G4X-qL1Lsd2PnLgoEiTnj7csaN7xps/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgOcZZHSkuXt0lJyOs0tys7F3-3kFolV5af9S0I68eRKDvfEPEWcCH3xzV3AvYEGl2zdPzg3RgwXbdI1Z57YYnE-jj4vTOc2QKYWL6SpWh6ntOw0-lC89GJWo7wUiMtdll8ARFaXWYsic/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGqhpfevXlYwyXhKf2K2Hicmae6jrUezMqK7umbQoCYHVu1Eo9ronxspmSw9UPjz5N8ZG35xrJ_dIzNeCaDCzeLUiUyQ7Sl2qwBjiwwAoZZCSzWH_LG1ffU-sYpXjQVnuXdnjw0vllSE/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGqhpfevXlYwyXhKf2K2Hicmae6jrUezMqK7umbQoCYHVu1Eo9ronxspmSw9UPjz5N8ZG35xrJ_dIzNeCaDCzeLUiUyQ7Sl2qwBjiwwAoZZCSzWH_LG1ffU-sYpXjQVnuXdnjw0vllSE/s400/Hells+Highway+12+%25281%2529.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b>What is it about?: </b>Confined to a prison camp and forced to do the back breaking work of construction for the ‘Liberty Highway’, convicted bank robber Duke Ellis looks for a way to escape the brutal conditions of the chain gang .However, his plans are complicated by the arrival of his cocky yet naïve younger brother, who looks up to Duke and wants to follow in his footsteps. <br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet: </b>Richard Dix,<b> </b>Tom Brown, C. Henry Gordon, Stanley Fields, Charles Middleton and Clarence Muse</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera:</b> Directed by Rowland Brown, Written by Samuel Ornitz, Robert Tasker and Rowland Brown, Cinematography by Edward Cronjager, Art direction by Carroll Clark.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b> <i>Hell’s Highway</i> is a prime example of Pre Code exploitation cinema, coming as it did hot on the heels of the hype surrounding Warners'<i> I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang</i>. Though both films were made at around the same time, <i>Hell’s Highway</i> sneaked into cinemas a couple of months before its legendary cousin, but like all imitators quickly faded into obscurity. However, it is an unjustly forgotten film that naturally suffers in comparison to the Paul Muni epic yet deserves serious consideration on its own merits. Although there is a powerful message contained in the story, it takes a back seat to a parade of human drama and suffering. The movie refrains from offering a clear moral stance, instead opting to view events from a detached cynical distance. An opening title card makes the audience perhaps believe that this is another movie with a conscience, offering a solemn plea for justice and an end to the “conditions portrayed herein – which though a throw-back to the Middle Ages, actually exist today”. Yet the accompanying newspaper headlines flashed before the screen quickly betray these good intentions with their sensationalism (“Naked Boy Was Chained By Throat To Overhead Rafters, Convicts Declare”). For here we have not the powerful sermonising for change of <i>I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang</i> but the lurid desire to show the abuses of the penal system in all its sordid glory, under the pretence of social betterment. With a cast of grotesques, a gritty, nihilistic worldview and a brisk pace, <i>Hell’s Highway</i> is tabloid film making at its finest, and is all the better for it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAVsaeubUyxCbYCiNZUgKP1GZZznw_8I3t6JMKT9gQHrXv06QaQecRA0R57g9qF5Vej9kt3W3WPyTPSq7_yj3GBAmuOruDOp8IpfO9xx98CUc7T_40YImBLreQYfhxeVnPbGOq2v3EuWI/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAVsaeubUyxCbYCiNZUgKP1GZZznw_8I3t6JMKT9gQHrXv06QaQecRA0R57g9qF5Vej9kt3W3WPyTPSq7_yj3GBAmuOruDOp8IpfO9xx98CUc7T_40YImBLreQYfhxeVnPbGOq2v3EuWI/s400/Hells+Highway+12+%25284%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcupfQ6qDc_ngqRT_s28vtPnw-bmkNfbL7wzGi-GvgQZsuj2vKAWukZ1zIuEBOM6G2oV1W7NpMPlBXuzKtN_X_1-Wb0j5qOXkbRnoiiNMQdL_LxA3WlikPYfg_pHy8mBpGFpqdVPddVgc/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcupfQ6qDc_ngqRT_s28vtPnw-bmkNfbL7wzGi-GvgQZsuj2vKAWukZ1zIuEBOM6G2oV1W7NpMPlBXuzKtN_X_1-Wb0j5qOXkbRnoiiNMQdL_LxA3WlikPYfg_pHy8mBpGFpqdVPddVgc/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcupfQ6qDc_ngqRT_s28vtPnw-bmkNfbL7wzGi-GvgQZsuj2vKAWukZ1zIuEBOM6G2oV1W7NpMPlBXuzKtN_X_1-Wb0j5qOXkbRnoiiNMQdL_LxA3WlikPYfg_pHy8mBpGFpqdVPddVgc/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For rather than being a film with a social purpose, the chain gang setting acts as a situation to hang two things – firstly that of the relationship between two brothers and secondly a near fetishism for prison brutality. All else is just window dressing, and incidental to the melodrama. The director, Rowland Brown was a singular talent who really deserved to achieve more in the movie industry (he also wrote and directed the excellent <i>Quick Millions</i> and the cult classic <i>Blood Money</i>) but personal and issues and creative conflicts derailed his directorial career, Always a man to fight the system, explore unusual ideas or just get kicked of a movie set, his films contain a quirky non conformity that could never realistically result in a long career in Hollywood. <i>Hell’s Highway</i> bears all his hallmarks and proves that perhaps he came along too early in film’s history. His ideas seem more in tune with the potent low budget exploitation cinema of the 50s and 60s and once the Production Code was enforced in 1934 a lot of his edge was lost.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Here he assembles a fine cast of character actors to portray the convicts and despite many not getting much screen time each character is memorable, and imbued with a semblance of an inner life. These include a bigamist (Charles Middleton) who prefers being in prison than being back with his three wives, a gullible prison guard who suspects his wife is cheating on him and takes lethal action (Warner Richmond), a cruel warden who in his spare time finds pleasure in playing the violin badly (C. Henry Gordon), a gay cook (Eddie Hart) who loves funerals (“The casket was all covered with a great big blanket of pansies!”), an African American prisoner (Clarence Muse) who misses his wife’s sweet charms (“…you don’t know tired a man does get when he don’t get no lovin’”) and a ladies’ man (Jed Kiley) who has signed photos from a variety of movie stars (all signed in the same handwriting) and who jumps back into his burning cell to retrieve them rather than escape. All these little sketches add so much to the supporting cast and flesh out the movie with all manner of fascinating details. When added to the carefully mapped out plot, the shocking representation of the misery and brutality of prison life and the distanced and non judgemental morality, <i>Hell’s Highway</i> is an intense mix of Pre Code crowd pleasing thrills. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Rmp0SZkZeIKCqjJpjLmRlsAvGBQrGGli-flFIEO3En-KadJ8-yyHKp546M0W5-Be998uX1HB1AxkQfk_f4b8lOP9YCHzBfgsLy0nh6q3wK33Op5WwzecpaD3qhasTUEMYdikAn6t-WE/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Rmp0SZkZeIKCqjJpjLmRlsAvGBQrGGli-flFIEO3En-KadJ8-yyHKp546M0W5-Be998uX1HB1AxkQfk_f4b8lOP9YCHzBfgsLy0nh6q3wK33Op5WwzecpaD3qhasTUEMYdikAn6t-WE/s400/Hells+Highway+12+%25285%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances: </b>Richard Dix brings a rugged menace to the role of Duke Ellis and shines in what on paper is a largely unsympathetic role. He is a tough career criminal yet heavily principled when it comes to how his brother sees him. Typically for the tone of the movie, there is no doubt about whether Duke is actually innocent of his crimes and it makes for a morally interesting choice of leading character. With his dark hair and manly good looks, there is an element of Clark Gable to Dix’s screen persona, yet without Gable’s twinkling charms and broad smile. In a sense, Dix is an unfiltered Gable, an alpha male in the prison yard and full of seething righteous anger at authority, yet without a measure of accountability for his own actions. In reality this is because Richard Dix lacks the acting range and charisma of Gable but nonetheless there is something magnetic about his performance in <i>Hell’s Highway</i>. It’s a stripped down role in a brutal environment and it suits his skills perfectly. Dix is an actor who had a very respectable career but who could have benefitted immensely from more of these sweat stained, gritty roles to flex his muscles to. There’s a great scene where he talks to Charles Middleton’s character while brushing his teeth in the morning, and spits out the contents of his mouth mid way through his line. It’s a small moment but refreshingly unrefined for a Hollywood production and works perfectly for his brutish character.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Speaking of Charles Middleton, he is superb as the gaunt pseudo mystical bigamist Matthew. Usually Middleton excels in high melodrama (see for example his iconic roles in the Flash Gordon serials or Laurel and Hardy films) but here he brings a real depth to his usual character. For the first time I can remember, he appeared to be a real person rather than merely a sonorous voice and grave demeanour. Unshaven and dishevelled, he stands by the sidelines watching for information then uses his new found knowledge to his advantage, disguised as mystical prophecy. With proclamations like “There is blood on the stars” he strikes an otherworldly presence. I always think that Charles Middleton usually has a certain impenetrable manner to him, like a stern Victorian father (to the point that I can’t actually image what he could be like in real life), but here given a real character and motivation he uses his considerable ability to create a memorably real persona, or at least as real as it gets with Charles Middleton. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUgvTcBgsKANfAKkNQYezWjwBqED9L5DkirGFaCsu0a0lMaUrtPgxV05-RUD5MYHjtONUVI7NBNlivKUKy2i7qNz9cN9f6fc-eZuSXLQcqXi13IuGgQI5pRy_2JyANj3xNj1kw1O7_Mc/s1600/Hells+Highway+12+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIUgvTcBgsKANfAKkNQYezWjwBqED9L5DkirGFaCsu0a0lMaUrtPgxV05-RUD5MYHjtONUVI7NBNlivKUKy2i7qNz9cN9f6fc-eZuSXLQcqXi13IuGgQI5pRy_2JyANj3xNj1kw1O7_Mc/s400/Hells+Highway+12+%25283%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical Excellences: </b>Rowland Brown’s direction is solid and concentrates on the drama with a pared down, ground level focus that lets the action speak for itself. Where the movie really shines is in its creation of an atmosphere of confinement, routine and misery. The camera moves slowly through the prisoners' cages (essentially train compartments with bars) as we see rows upon rows of shackles and chains. Before long the clanking of the chains being locked and unlocked and the rattling of metal as it is pulled through each shackle signalling the start and end of each day become part of the background noise of the movie.. Added to this is also the ever present lilt of the Spiritual songs echoing through the encampment. It starts from the opening credits, continues during the hard labour of rock breaking and surrounds the relative calm of the evening as prisoners sit together chained up. The eerie and haunting music frames and highlights the narrative like a Greek chorus (and expertly sung by the Etude Ethiopian Chorus). Brown uses this dreamlike atmosphere as an ethereal contrast to the horrors of the sweatbox, the brutal method of torture used for straightening out an unruly prisoner, with one memorable moment where the singing is suddenly interrupted by the howl of a dog, signifying the death of a prisoner.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>In many ways the most impressive parts of the movie are the minor details. It’s a cleverly written script wherein seemingly inconsequential moments slowly snowball into becoming life changing events and where small character details leave a lasting impression. Examples of this include the deaf prisoner who doesn’t hear the bullet that kills him, and his plaintive moans to a higher power as her dies or the group of young posse members who shoot Duke’s brother from behind and who cry and run away once they realise the reality of what they’ve done. These moments of despair and poignancy appear when least expected and make a lasting impression, hinting at inner stories that will forever remain untold. </div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, best of all is a particularly brilliant subplot involving a missing spoon, grabbed by an inmate at meal time. We catch up on the progress of the stolen cutlery throughout the film in various inserts as it is whittled down to a shiv and used ultimately for a deadly purpose. From the moment the spoon is announced as missing, the audience can guess what the end result will be, and the sense of grim foreboding builds slowly and inexorably. What is striking about the subplot is that we never get a good look at the inmate’s face. He’s just a face in the crowd, a menacing silent killer blending into the background and waiting for the right moment to strike. He’s not a featured character, has no influence on the story, and has no real motivation. As a result the episode has a chilling, anonymity that underlines the randomness of the violence in the chain gang</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FFMh7StsogonoO3CtF2KwRWyAUT3fOxyFihCVGGZTcHeeWLvhyWIcQchcL-r43J74d2zA5vbTaRq2EqyRO6u-WQm_iA7hGtMHZ0-8MYgqs0BH_dDam1gZdRG7QZxIOqgm4jOVZzx_h4/s1600/Hells+Highway+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4FFMh7StsogonoO3CtF2KwRWyAUT3fOxyFihCVGGZTcHeeWLvhyWIcQchcL-r43J74d2zA5vbTaRq2EqyRO6u-WQm_iA7hGtMHZ0-8MYgqs0BH_dDam1gZdRG7QZxIOqgm4jOVZzx_h4/s400/Hells+Highway+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>Not surprisingly, everything is played straight in the movie and in the name of gritty realism there is little to detract from the on screen misery. However one brief scene raises an unintentional laugh. Duke is being punished for punching out a guard and the sadistic warden decides to give him a taste of his whip. He pulls off Duke's shirt to reveal his Army regiment tattoo (42<sup>nd</sup> Infantry, 167<sup>th</sup> Regiment – a real division that served in the trenches during the First World War). He sees the tattoo and hesitates before using the lash. It’s just a silly moment, firstly due to the inference that even a vile and sadistic prison warden would hesitate to punish a troublemaking career criminal because he served his country. Even sillier is the fact that the centrepiece of Duke’s tattoo is an <i>enormous</i> American flag. Other than the fact it’s a clumsy and awkward visual motif, you’re telling me no one noticed it before? You can’t miss it!</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth watching?: </b><i>Hell’s Highway</i> may be the unloved cousin of <i>I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang</i> but what it lacks in artistry, powerhouse acting and searing social comment, it makes up by being wildly entertaining and lurid in equal parts. It never sermonises like its famous cousin and crackles with a raw vitality and earthiness that makes its point coolly and directly. It may be exploitative but in many ways it’s the tabloid fodder that really ingrains a message into the minds of the general public. The movie speaks to its audience on their own level, giving them a cast of recognisable characters, a compelling and violent plot that simmers slowing until exploding in a fiery climax and a leading man that delivers a square jawed, rugged performance. <i>Hell’s Highway</i> is great entertainment, both shocking and enlightening and deserves to be reappraised as a compelling and valid companion piece to its more famous competitor. </div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote: </b>“Whosoever betrayeth his brother is in danger of brimstone, and stomach trouble”</div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-68717240837264512302016-11-11T03:00:00.000-08:002016-11-11T03:00:00.153-08:00Remembering "Mary's Six Hundred" - Mary Pickford Helps the War Effort<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMq0i0oQ2Ad4D676UB_gHeRI63ewqloC28bbSmA9qb4x7opodPALLukr5dENmAcx02KNYKakyaNL9x7ZKNbWXPDzaLZigVhiPPBTfxehxHAI5pz-5L6kJbTqBCj9kXiytzZHF5PJmsNPk/s1600/Mary+Pickford.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMq0i0oQ2Ad4D676UB_gHeRI63ewqloC28bbSmA9qb4x7opodPALLukr5dENmAcx02KNYKakyaNL9x7ZKNbWXPDzaLZigVhiPPBTfxehxHAI5pz-5L6kJbTqBCj9kXiytzZHF5PJmsNPk/s400/Mary+Pickford.png" width="140" /></a></div>
The oldest movie magazine I own is a copy of <i>Motion Picture Classic</i> dated December 1917 and the other day I decided to give it a read (whilst marvelling that the magazine and its contents were almost a hundred years old - <i>how did that happen?</i>) . In amongst stories about long forgotten stars (such as Virginia Pearson, Ethel Clayton and the charming June Caprice) and reviews of films that I can guarantee have tragically crumbled to dust or burst into flames many years ago, there were quite a few interesting titbits of information about life in Hollywood in that far flung year of 1917.<br />
<br />
The one that really caught my eye was a brief story about Mary Pickford and her continuing efforts to raise funds and morale for the war drive. I thought that it would be interesting to share it on this, Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice to end the First World War in 1918.<br />
<br />
From the "Via Camera, Wire and Telephone" news column: -<br />
<br />
<i>"Mary's Six Hundred" is the name they have proudly adopted. We refer to the six hundred stalwart boys in khaki composing of the Second Battalion if the First Regiment of California Field Artillery. These boys hail from Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego. When they go "somewhere over there," each man in "Mary's Six Hundred" will wear a locket round his neck containing a miniature of his little protector. It was characteristic of Mary Pickford to adopt every mother's son of these "motherless sons." "I have taken each one of my six hundred under my wing," the little mother stoutly declares, "and I'm going to see to it that my boys receive plenty of tobacco and candy."</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP-sdFk7_b3zY4BR69Dipi7QBVto-GsHUPfSa3eqnDugYNOpxu93I-Pzmsg0ceIkz5bY6NhtUPv779mmvA9nRVSQZzvXH64sW5f1S8hRCQy9iZqee7cnu6Un5FPJFtEmRyUbfb6KYMJ08/s1600/Mary+Pickford+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
That sounded rather intriguing, and I must admit, through modern eyes smelt somewhat of a publicity stunt. In reality the story behind "Mary's Six Hundred" was anything but, and is a fascinating episode in the life of Miss Pickford and one which highlights the strong relationships the silent stars had with their audiences. I think it's actually a fairly well known tale but I feel it bears repeating on this day more than most, as it illustrates the level of commitment Mary gave to her war work and her community.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0X-MP8XTjL2ivZuQxWOKiaMMxxfaXMDrKtvvCQ39QZ7kUYbUkdLY-gHO9krlM3-3IaSVgxcycVgg-4bTs1obMaXlFS07ytIt6vbXBN2abcAN4c59CsMAE4ADNe8-de6mTvTjoeJBs9l0/s1600/Mary+Pickford+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0X-MP8XTjL2ivZuQxWOKiaMMxxfaXMDrKtvvCQ39QZ7kUYbUkdLY-gHO9krlM3-3IaSVgxcycVgg-4bTs1obMaXlFS07ytIt6vbXBN2abcAN4c59CsMAE4ADNe8-de6mTvTjoeJBs9l0/s400/Mary+Pickford+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When America entered the First World War in 1917, Hollywood stepped up to the plate and rallied the troops. For the first time the world realised the true power of the movies and movie stars not only for wartime propaganda but for raising funds, home front education and the recruiting of new soldiers. Mary Pickford, alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and many others travelled coast to coast promoting Liberty Bonds to immense success and the role of the humble picture player was never the same again. However, before that happened, Mary as "America's Sweetheart" had already been declared the Navy's "Little Sister", and not to be outdone the Army went one further and formally adopted her.<br />
<br />
The regiment in question was the 143rd Field Artillery of California, based at the time at Camp Arcadia. By 1918 the regiment had named her an honorary Colonel and she visited the camp and accompanied them on long hikes throughout the local hills and trails, all of which she approached with her usual tireless enthusiasm. She took her new adoption seriously and became a vocal and outspoken supporter of the troops and the victory drive, and rallied other stars to follow suit. Pickford came through on her promise to keep the soldiers supplied with smokes (no mention of the candy though) and she spent much of her spare time pestering her fellow movie stars to donate their money or cigarettes to the cause. Incidentally, she wasn't the only one, as seen in an advert in the <i>Motion Picture Classic</i> for "The Francis X. Bushman Tobacco Fund" which asks "Do you know that our boys abroad are actually suffering for want of a smoke?". <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy5QJk5dP4-puAlGX92P6kNDyN9P4Li5oeal4PV7ZUo0btpbThxY0MyHIJ1ZNyDRXtBDrdUD2wNxjaevCv8m_kQMRqUEGA-x99x6PvOYFV5LLLipsBNj9PotU7GWvg-RRh8GTy_OkPPo/s1600/Mary+Pickford+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy5QJk5dP4-puAlGX92P6kNDyN9P4Li5oeal4PV7ZUo0btpbThxY0MyHIJ1ZNyDRXtBDrdUD2wNxjaevCv8m_kQMRqUEGA-x99x6PvOYFV5LLLipsBNj9PotU7GWvg-RRh8GTy_OkPPo/s400/Mary+Pickford+4.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
The regiment continued their association with honorary Colonel Pickford when they were featured heavily in Mary's 1918 army comedy <i>Johanna Enlists. </i>In the final moments of the film a title card informs the audience that the 143rd are now "over there", mentioning that Mary Pickford is their godmother and ending "God bless them and send them safely back to us". We then see a shot of a uniformed Mary on horseback leading some soldiers then ends with Colonels Faneuf (their commanding officer) and Pickford proudly saluting the camera.<br />
<br />
As a trivia note, serving in the 143rd at that time was future western star Fred Thomson. Thomson met Pickford after he broke his leg playing football while in the army and she visited him in hospital. Through his friendship with her, Thomson would gain an entry into the movie world and even meet his wife, the screenwriter Frances Marion. Thomson was a big star, mostly in western pictures from 1921 until his untimely and tragic death in 1928.<br />
<br />
The regiment were sent "over there" to France in August 1918 and their story next is picked up in the <i>Los Angeles Herald</i> dated November 27th 1918 in a column stating that "a Christmas present of 70,000 cigarettes and 250 cigars was today started on it's way" to her now 1400 "godsons" stationed in Bordeaux, France. It continues, "The shipment, made through the Salvation Army (who) agreed to present to Col. R. J. Faneuf, commanding officer, on or before Christmas". The article doesn't say whether he planned to keep them to himself or give them to the boys, but we'll just have to hope he was both an officer and a gentleman! The article ends with the disappointing fact that though the regiment was designated for early return to the United States, "Ajdt.Gen. Harris informed Miss Pickford however, that the boys will not come home before Christmas". However, it seems like all went well for the 143rd Field Artillery and their 70,000 cigarettes, as the war ended before they saw any action.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0a2oC03akrpvW5RT2hnsE78yZSacu3P92T-AiG4HkNXe_nY1TamsMwyJex9cZcftoHj16gQ5NysrEOR3c5tqi0IEQpLHlZlhMNXzLplJofWRX7TzEeY8fw8bJTbHjCTqMWE86P9UBcqI/s1600/Mary+Pickford+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0a2oC03akrpvW5RT2hnsE78yZSacu3P92T-AiG4HkNXe_nY1TamsMwyJex9cZcftoHj16gQ5NysrEOR3c5tqi0IEQpLHlZlhMNXzLplJofWRX7TzEeY8fw8bJTbHjCTqMWE86P9UBcqI/s400/Mary+Pickford+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
On November 11th 1918, the war was over and soon the tired soldiers would be returning home to civilian life. They had done their job, and so had Mary. Mary Pickford's relationship with the 143rd Field Artillery highlighted the real and honest commitment she had to the troops, and more importantly with the ordinary young men who served their country. For Mary it was the start of a life of charity and philanthropy in both war and peace time. Even to these cynical, modern eyes it plain to see how much Mary threw herself into her work and how much it meant to her. On this Remembrance Day as I think about all the soldiers who fought for our freedom in wars since 1918, I salute the gallant 143rd Field Artillery, and I salute "America's Sweetheart", Miss Mary Pickford!Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-88532865466055419322016-08-20T14:17:00.000-07:002016-08-20T14:17:00.143-07:00The Mask of Diijon (1946) - Erich von Stroheim is No Longer Interested in Hollywood's Gags, Tricks and Illusions<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8etHXSsEiQ-qMAxdqi530Obzx0h4qDI4QHE3FBXeDGl39UdcwW2z4a3sojzUpkcWaQSBwuCjh-zjipghZ8olue3qCuT-a_mjrnZ9mzNpBCELD9DrpsxXtn0DPsSha-6RyLij_NLjXZ0/s1600/mask+of+diijon+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8etHXSsEiQ-qMAxdqi530Obzx0h4qDI4QHE3FBXeDGl39UdcwW2z4a3sojzUpkcWaQSBwuCjh-zjipghZ8olue3qCuT-a_mjrnZ9mzNpBCELD9DrpsxXtn0DPsSha-6RyLij_NLjXZ0/s400/mask+of+diijon+3.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<i>The Mask of Diijon</i> was Erich von Stroheim’s last American film before departing for France in 1946, where he would spend the rest of his career (except from a brief return to Hollywood for <i>Sunset Boulevard</i> in 1949). He had been anxiously waiting for the French film industry to get back on its feet after the Second World War as he felt his talents were better appreciated in Europe and he would be finally spared the constant humiliation he had endured in Hollywood since the early 30s and the end of his career as a director. <i>The Mask of Diijon</i> was acknowledged by Stroheim as beneath his talents (he referred to it as a "stinko") but as usual he needed the money so accepted the work. Luckily, the Poverty Row picture by PRC (Producer's Releasing Corporation) with its swift pace, moody visuals and frequent close ups is a cut above their usual fare and one of their better efforts. In fact, with a few tweaks and bit more gloss it could easily pass for a B picture from the likes of Universal or RKO, and Stroheim more than compensates for any budgetary limitations with his steely star power. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The film opens with a clever piece of misdirection as we are shown a girl being dragged to the guillotine in Revolutionary France. The blade falls and we see the disembodied head sitting in the wicker basket. The head then gives a wide grin as the camera pulls back to reveal the tableau as an elaborate piece of stage magic. The trick was orchestrated in an effort to coax retired magician Diijon (Stroheim) out of retirement but he remains stone faced and unimpressed. His friend then asks incredulously, “What is the matter with you Diijon? Less than a year ago you were one of the top magicians in vaudeville”. As with similar roles in <i>The Great Gabbo</i> and <i>The Great Flamarion</i>, Stroheim plays a cheap music hall turn, and one who has seen better days. This fact was probably not lost on Stroheim whose life and career had remained under a cloud of failure since his fall from grace in the late 20s. Diijon snaps back, probably echoing conversations he had endured many times over, “Stop it! I’m no longer interested in gags, tricks and illusions…I can stand on my own feet. I need no help from you, nor anyone else”. At that point another character remarks, “He’s a stubborn egomaniac”. Once again, the troubled biography of Erich von Stroheim bleeds into his fictional life. Diijon and his failures have become indistinguishable from Stroheim’s own.<br />
<br />
The first half of the movie concerns Diijon’s continued obsession with the art of hypnotism (which is equated with the occult for some reason) and the concern felt from his wife (played by Jeanne Bates) about his mental and financial health. Diijon refuses help from his friends and becomes increasingly withdrawn from society, stubbornly refusing offers of employment and friendship and as in real life refusing to compromise his beliefs. The strange thing is, for all the talk of the dark occult world Diijon is dabbling in, his desire to develop and discipline his mind in an effort to ‘touch the infinite’ is actually rather admirable. However, he blames his wife (amongst others) for his problems spitting back at her almost poignantly, “You couldn’t hurt me anymore, nobody can”. Again, lines like these must have given Stroheim a delicious thrill given his propensity for self flagellation in his movie roles. Diijon’s real downfall begins when he is convinced to return to his stage act to earn some money and the trick goes disastrously wrong. His levitating woman abruptly stops levitating and he is humiliated and exposed in front of a nightclub audience. As ever he refuses to take the blame for his failure, and in a line of dialogue that strikes slightly too close to the bone it is declared that “The mastermind is nothing but a stupid charlatan”.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRkM8U6Vc_sWbcP7BOsdJoAuVLh1UjZyflHrHS-1Axz1tkzBNPnUghnbeHP2FmjxkWaNCeUowzhMwwiMYeG4UD4JRtFRpIKMAREdrDFq6CKmgWF0TpUEu608LfNEoIAZNkASvpvORG08/s1600/mask+of+diijon+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRkM8U6Vc_sWbcP7BOsdJoAuVLh1UjZyflHrHS-1Axz1tkzBNPnUghnbeHP2FmjxkWaNCeUowzhMwwiMYeG4UD4JRtFRpIKMAREdrDFq6CKmgWF0TpUEu608LfNEoIAZNkASvpvORG08/s400/mask+of+diijon+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The rest of the film is pure hokum, a dazzling yet gaudy tale of mesmerism, murder and jealous rage ending in a delirious shoot out and an audaciously deranged ending that literally <i>no one</i> can see coming. In fact if there is any reason to watch the movie other than for Erich von Stroheim it is the ending. I can’t spoil it but it is truly jaw dropping in its sudden left turn into incongruity. It truly has to be seen to be believed! Other than that the production has some beautifully cinematic moments from director Lew Landers, with one memorable scene where Diijon walks the night streets, his hat, cane and cape masked by the darkness and swirling fog and his fragile mental state heightened by obtuse camera angles. Cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh at times attempts to give the movie a dreamlike, hypnotic atmosphere to echo the tormented mind of Diijon and this in itself lifts the picture up far higher than the average PRC or Poverty Row fare. Though talky at times, often preposterous in its subject matter (there is an awful lot of the “You will do exactly as I say” school of filmic hypnosis on show) and quite blandly staged, the good definitely outweighs the bad. The camera is clearly drawn to its charismatic yet damaged star and reacts accordingly. <br />
<br />
I’ve always been fascinated by Stroheim’s acting style and screen persona. Based on his reputation as a fearsome and intimidating presence both on and off screen in the silent era, it’s initially quite surprising what a soft voice he has. He has a clipped European accent that is difficult to pin down (I’d guess it’s his natural Austrian accent softened by years spent in America) and a delivery that is disarmingly pleasant yet hints at a cultured cruelty and menace. Perhaps the mere fact that his voice doesn’t immediately match the myth of Stroheim in the popular consciousness meant that he lost out on a lot of potentially juicy roles in the sound era, but he is too good an actor to be saddled with such nonsense. With his relatively small stature and his always elegantly tailored apparel (including all manner of props such as canes, monocles and cigarettes) he has an imposing and spellbinding presence. Nonetheless, his voice and acting style lend themselves to the creation of a nuanced and complex screen character that was often wasted in turgid melodrama playing mad doctors and hypnotists.<br />
<br />
It’s been well documented (such as in Arthur Lennig‘s superlative biography <i>Stroheim</i>) that, denied the opportunity to direct motion pictures Erich von Stroheim found ways to incorporate his filmic world into his acting roles. He took an intense interest in the details of every script, every costume and every set design. And despite often causing many arguments with directors, writers and fellow actors he managed to win various concessions to his own private narrative and obsessions. This is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Stroheim the actor and unpicking his performances to discover the layers of meaning he has placed into the added lines of dialogue, the random character traits given to his roles and the minute details of his costuming and set dressing give a tantalising piece of the puzzle. More importantly they gave Stroheim an outlet for his creative urges and a way to feel, even fleetingly, in control of his career and art. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscTMpbkrgYnFMT2INvt06bp9Ka1WsSmu4O8dcl62FNtUYLFYfIzXc_vhVswneKkOqSpaR4c2CkvSNnxB_Byp5iYDSPp332WVS9lBJMiZk6T3scCfNy9lkQ91ur0fBfiPFYtXvZ5malaA/s1600/mask+of+diijon+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscTMpbkrgYnFMT2INvt06bp9Ka1WsSmu4O8dcl62FNtUYLFYfIzXc_vhVswneKkOqSpaR4c2CkvSNnxB_Byp5iYDSPp332WVS9lBJMiZk6T3scCfNy9lkQ91ur0fBfiPFYtXvZ5malaA/s400/mask+of+diijon+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
In <i>The Mask of Diijon</i>, Stroheim must have had very low expectations going in as there are apparently no known script additions, and Diijon has none of the familiar disabilities or deformities so favoured by the master. In fact, though Stroheim gives a very good performance which as ever blurs the lines between myth, reality and fiction in his life, he falls back on his standard acting trick to get by – smoking. There is no one in film history who smokes better than Erich von Stroheim. Not Humphrey Bogart, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Greta Garbo. Stroheim looks like he was born with a cigarette in his mouth and born to smoke it and he masterfully uses a cigarette as a prop to convey all manner of emotions and character traits. Whether holding it proudly in his mouth while swaggering down the stairs in a defiant moment or lowering it downwards and close to his body when feeling defensive, the cigarette is ever present and always adding to his performance. It’s the brief moments that would be lost on most viewers that are the most revealing: the way he flicks his ash arrogantly while talking to his friends, or discarding it carelessly while engrossed in his book “The Power of Suggestion”. This is contrasted by a scene in a café after he has endured the humiliation of this magic act going wrong where he sits down at the counter and immediately reaches for an ashtray to nervously tap the ash into, his former confident state shattered.<br />
<br />
Yet more than anything it’s the stench of failure that hangs over Stroheim in roles like these. There is a constant referral back to the greater glories of the past as he toils away in the tawdry present of parlour tricks and vaudeville. Every success is counteracted by a disaster of his own making, bringing to mind the self destructive reflex in Stroheim's nature. At some point, the deeply wounded Stroheim must have got a wry chuckle from these parts, as he plays them so often as to become typecast as a has been. Either Hollywood was playing a cruel joke on him, or Stroheim decided to offer himself up for regular humiliation as a kind of perverse penance to the machine. Despite this there is an embattled dignity in Erich von Stroheim’s acting in these Poverty Row potboilers. Even when a playing bitter, stubborn egomaniac like Diijon there is a sense of vulnerability and pain at the centre of his performance. As in life, the on screen Stroheim is a proud, driven man pushed to the edge of his wits but remaining unbroken and true to his values. Even without props and set dressing Stroheim embodies the old world chivalry of his native lands, in all its tattered, hypocritical and outdated glory and rightly or wrongly he refuses to bend to the will of his tormentors.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8SmQRs36jt1cu6-q5JmTDnNsUcxyKpUHyz1Fnqng0MQsF0AwVYo_D3TWDWO-y61eGYvaIddjYJL0hZ1LbYBqpYNd7G_bGANHHMEVzoHsI3HDtSN2nPIwXSe5m45A7Aa88L84CLDwB28/s1600/mask+of+diijon+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8SmQRs36jt1cu6-q5JmTDnNsUcxyKpUHyz1Fnqng0MQsF0AwVYo_D3TWDWO-y61eGYvaIddjYJL0hZ1LbYBqpYNd7G_bGANHHMEVzoHsI3HDtSN2nPIwXSe5m45A7Aa88L84CLDwB28/s400/mask+of+diijon+2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After <i>The Mask of Diijon</i>, Stroheim’s time in Hollywood was at an end. There would be no more insignificant parts in insignificant films to torment him. He thought that the movie industry in France would welcome him with open arms but sadly though acknowledged as a true artist in France, their industry in 1946 had neither the money nor the creative ability to give him what he wanted. However, it was better than the purgatory of Hollywood, and Stroheim made some good (and some not so good) films in his final years, and found many more ways to interfere with scripts and to incorporate all his peculiar interests into his cinematic characters. He even wrote an couple of novels that synthesized all his obsessions into grim, unreadable pulp fiction. His lone return to Hollywood, <i>Sunset Boulevard</i> was not without its uncomfortably cathartic problems, but in hindsight became a major triumph and perhaps the film he is most known for today (as much as this would have wounded him). Strangely, it didn’t result in any further work for him. Stroheim's burned bridges in Hollywood remained firmly burned.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As it is, <i>The Mask of Diijon</i> is a decent ending to a disappointing chapter in Stroheim’s life. It’s a better than average and fairly entertaining production with suitably bizarre and ridiculous moments and gives its star a chance to breeze through a picture with minimum effort and stress and pick up a much needed paycheck. Stroheim conveys the air of a once broken man who stubbornly refuses to accept his current reality and instead seeks to reach beyond the veil and achieve something far larger and more important than his previous life of parlour tricks. As Diijon, Erich von Stroheim manages to encapsulate his struggle with the system, his refusal to bend to the whims of inferior talents and his own self destructive urge to destroy his own success. Right up to the end he remains forever, that "stubborn egomaniac".</div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-54531098225593932462016-07-30T13:47:00.000-07:002016-08-02T15:38:42.943-07:00Ladies of Leisure (1930) - Fat Shaming Marie Prevost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY8hdB1UX3SG41d1B_6NaifV2hxUQzCt-uAbrbI1cdQHuchdlNhCIe5NfaB7lmbJBE90Yb70J6P0JXcEFExZBBCSpjOcM5BerM4P0FwtmmQzgJvdB9iFDBHxXE-yNZ5Ab1lZFAux261VY/s1600/ladies+of+leisure+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY8hdB1UX3SG41d1B_6NaifV2hxUQzCt-uAbrbI1cdQHuchdlNhCIe5NfaB7lmbJBE90Yb70J6P0JXcEFExZBBCSpjOcM5BerM4P0FwtmmQzgJvdB9iFDBHxXE-yNZ5Ab1lZFAux261VY/s400/ladies+of+leisure+3.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
Hollywood can be a cruel place. One minute you are the toast of the town, the next you are out on your ear. You’ve doubtless heard all the clichés about the ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’; all the scandals, the self destruction and the casualties of early Hollywood, from Peg Entwistle to Fatty Arbuckle to Carole Landis. Add to this the crushed dreams of fallen stars such as John Gilbert or the artistic humiliations experienced by Buster Keaton and Erich von Stroheim and you have yourself a deceptively dark underbelly to the enchantment of the movies. In time, Hollywood itself began to perpetuate and even glamorise the dangers and pitfalls of Tinseltown in its own movies such as <i>What Price Hollywood?</i>, <i>A Star is Born</i> and <i>Sunset Boulevard</i>. This in itself has become part of the lore and the lure of Hollywood, the dangerous appeal of a magical land when you enter not only at your own peril, but at the risk of sacrificing your own soul for fame and fortune.<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When the silent era ended and talking pictures began, a seismic shift began in the ranks of the movie players as everyone, from major star to bit player wondered if they had what it took to adapt and change in the new environment. Countless silent stars fell by the wayside, either forced out of the movie industry or pushed down the playbill to minor parts. The humiliation felt by stars used to being gods and goddesses in the Jazz Age was acutely felt, and many of them had to readjust to lives of anonymity. This in itself was tragic enough, but for those who hung on and tried to make a living in movies, life could be tough with a new technology to adapt to and a fresh crop of stars hungry to take their place. And if there wasn’t enough pressure, occasionally the studios themselves used their influence to direct some older stars right out the door to the unemployment line. Sometimes, it was just the evolution of the industry and survival of the fittest, but other times such as in <i>Ladies of Leisure</i> it’s just unnecessary bullying that ultimately had a human cost.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Ladies of Leisure</i> was directed by Frank Capra for Columbia and is primarily known for being the movie that made a star out of Barbara Stanwyck and which propelled her on a rise to the upper echelons of Hollywood, a position she remained at for the bulk of her career. The plot deals with the usual story of love on the wrong side of the tracks as Stanwyck’s “lady of leisure” falls for Ralph Graves’ wealthy artist despite the protestations of his haughty family. It’s a story told many times before and since and filmed with a decent amount of care. It’s certainly by no means a classic Capra work, but it does prove that right from the start Barbara Stanwyck had the ability and poise to be a major star. While lacking believability when trying to be the hard bitten party girl (she would pick this up in no time luckily), she handles her emotional scenes superbly and easily overcomes much of the hackneyed material in the script. Though the film is massively overlong at 100 minutes and all too often dips into the sort of turgid melodrama so ubiquitous in the early 30s, it’s undoubtedly a star making performance from Stanwyck and sets the tone nicely for this stage in her career.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMuPV9Ylf_DXiiQmCBaNxB0tjL2M9bjpMWRe44WZ6_OXnLK2wZINdj7Kcl_zATXgbuKhrg0oYJz75wOqrzus3-NAGAOdnisgr8ufKuBwtFibQdm4lCmdyBLE1z3NznBdJCePDYmYvfjhY/s1600/ladies+of+leisure+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMuPV9Ylf_DXiiQmCBaNxB0tjL2M9bjpMWRe44WZ6_OXnLK2wZINdj7Kcl_zATXgbuKhrg0oYJz75wOqrzus3-NAGAOdnisgr8ufKuBwtFibQdm4lCmdyBLE1z3NznBdJCePDYmYvfjhY/s400/ladies+of+leisure+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The movie co stars Marie Prevost as Barbara’s best friend but sadly she doesn’t fare nearly so well and <i>Ladies of Leisure</i> is another textbook example of a movie with two actresses of equal talent whom the studio saw going on very different career trajectories. Miss Prevost became a big star in silent pictures, although her personal life was beset by scandal and despite strong performances in films such as <i>The Beautiful and Damned</i> and <i>The Marriage Circle</i>, by 1926 her career had peaked. The late silent era saw a series of tragedies befall Marie, starting with the loss of her contract with Warner Brothers (due in part to the aforementioned scandals), followed by the death of her mother in an automobile accident and the end of her marriage. These events took their toll and by the start of the sound era Marie Provost was addicted to alcohol, suffering from depression and binge eating. Despite her problems she adapted admirably to the demands of sound and still maintained steady work as a supporting actress.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In <i>Ladies of Leisure</i>, Marie Prevost plays Dot, the roommate and best friend of Barbara Stanwyck’s Kay. She is a fellow good time girl, but she has far more fun doing it, openly talking about her need to marry a rich man and to get as much as possible from them. She has an effervescent, impish charm about her with her cheeky smile and giggling looks. She certainly brightens up a movie which at times has a gravely serious tone and depending on how you want to look at it, you could say she almost steals the picture. Sadly, there’s a dark shadow looming over Marie Prevost’s performance in <i>Ladies of Leisure</i> and it comes in the form of a peculiar type of onscreen harassment. I’ve always thought that being a star in the Golden Age of Hollywood required talent and timing but it also required good presentation. At the end of the day the studio could make or break a star, and here the presentation of Marie Prevost is intended to give you one single impression – she needs to lose weight.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMCq20PX2XVdCci1hCLNxyK89MDTRuDDK0_PKFudLUppKGGe2-haJjJNmfvhOjE_fOuM5PcLRG_7NiP5qOUP_NtNPSbRGQbAJZ52gbdb0DvcGrDQtMd_KH86t9aJ9sqZi3htidye5Ifo/s1600/ladies+of+leisure+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKMCq20PX2XVdCci1hCLNxyK89MDTRuDDK0_PKFudLUppKGGe2-haJjJNmfvhOjE_fOuM5PcLRG_7NiP5qOUP_NtNPSbRGQbAJZ52gbdb0DvcGrDQtMd_KH86t9aJ9sqZi3htidye5Ifo/s400/ladies+of+leisure+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All the way through the movie we are reminded that Marie Prevost is too fat. While it is mostly played for laughs, by the fourth or fifth time it is brought up the joke starts to wear a little thin (if you pardon the expression). When we first meet her character Dot, she is proclaiming to Kay (Stanwyck) that she is going up in the world and is “..a lady who is gonna eat caviar”. Stanwyck’s retort is that “Well don’t eat too much just because it’s free…another 10 pounds and they won’t be calling you up again!”. Even though Prevost gets in the funny punchline of “You can’t weigh sex appeal!”, it’s an unusual way to introduce her character. It seems her defining characteristic isn’t that she is the protagonist’s loyal friend or that she's funny, it’s that she likes to eat. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Later, while reclining in bed (and very artfully smoking a cigarette), Kay stomps in and says “You sleep too much, you’re getting awful fat”. Dot replies that if she gets too fat she’ll just get married and retire. Her alleged best friend then says “Married? Who’s gonna marry you?”. Later in the movie, Dot is on a date and (while stuffing her face with food) asks her beau, “Do you think I’m too fat?” Her date (played by a permanently pie eyed Lowell Sherman) replies dryly, “There couldn’t be too much of you”. He then looks pained as Dot then proceeds to order the whole menu, because of course she’s fat and that’s funny.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidYNL2-4fDQwej-3g-cLwAUV1o70k5LckHxwUYi3EDgtOr_af7QKWvStSEaf8V1x3VTW6X3YSZUhgEdMAKSOqOxVTpksuEyUKtU4giZUl3t_jB2c_Wjbb49-O3TVvWwRdoWTQo9WHc4M4/s1600/ladies+of+leisure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidYNL2-4fDQwej-3g-cLwAUV1o70k5LckHxwUYi3EDgtOr_af7QKWvStSEaf8V1x3VTW6X3YSZUhgEdMAKSOqOxVTpksuEyUKtU4giZUl3t_jB2c_Wjbb49-O3TVvWwRdoWTQo9WHc4M4/s400/ladies+of+leisure.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The constant attention to Marie Prevost’s weight reaches its height in a bizarre scene where we see her using one of those old fashioned vibrating belt machines used to lose weight. The camera starts on the back of her thighs and works up, as we see every bit of her wobbling and jiggling derriere in all its glory. I’m so pleased that high definition didn’t exist back then, as the scene is so terribly unfair to an actress who was struggling with her weight, among other things. To make things worse, she inexplicably is wearing a sweater that is several sizes too large, giving the impression she is enormous. As with all the scenes where her weight is callously pointed out, Marie makes the most of it and does some very funny pantomime as she attempts to extricate herself from the belt to answer the door. However, comedy aside, these moments in the movie leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The main problem with all the references to weight is that she’s not really that fat. Sure, she’s a little chubby compared to Barbara Stanwyck, but who isn’t? She is short and sweet, and looks a darn sight more appealing than most of her waif like contemporaries. It's notable that another petite and curvy silent star, Clara Bow was going through similar studio problems at the time. I don’t think anyone other than a Hollywood executive would look at her and think she was in any way overweight. Despite this, her supposed fatness is used in such an unnecessarily cruel way. If you think about someone like Patsy Kelly, a comedienne frequently used as a sort of female Oliver Hardy by Hal Roach, her comedy comes out of the physical contrast to her co stars such as Zasu Pitts, She may be (slightly) larger but like Hardy the comedy derives from the situations she gets into and the way she reacts to them rather than having people pointing out to her “Ha ha! You fell over because you’re fat!”. Kelly, doesn’t have to eat a big cake to make her point, and she doesn’t have to be reminded of her size as if it’s a bad thing, it’s just who she is and it’s made to work for her. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPaJjedFkXpREnuotoeivkSjNclw39Z4lHKVyLtQMS2jXYSeiTnjsxL6YwUbEUB6s5PfrzfUVO3o20V9M2Nidc80NXaPROQBiHMHaYFxs5syRU6_0H9-a9aDt-6IGumXt_QtZQ3lgH84U/s1600/marie+prevost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPaJjedFkXpREnuotoeivkSjNclw39Z4lHKVyLtQMS2jXYSeiTnjsxL6YwUbEUB6s5PfrzfUVO3o20V9M2Nidc80NXaPROQBiHMHaYFxs5syRU6_0H9-a9aDt-6IGumXt_QtZQ3lgH84U/s400/marie+prevost.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This treatment is all so unnecessary for an attractive woman who looks perfectly fine and was funny and talented enough to make the material work without the need for fat based gags. As mentioned earlier, there definitely seems to be a message being sent here by the studio. Somebody, somewhere wasn’t happy about her weight and an on screen example to others was made. That this could happen isn’t out of the question when one sees how Kay Francis would be treated by Warner Brothers a few years later when she was given lines full of ‘r’s to lisp her way through. It’s so petty but in the mean world of Hollywood, a world then as now very much living in its own self created bubble and obsessed by looks, it’s sadly not unexpected.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Marie Prevost died, alone, in 1937 after years of alcohol abuse, depression and binge eating. Her problems may have been caused by tragedies in her life, but I can’t help feeling that appearing in movies like <i>Ladies of Leisure</i> didn’t help her fragile mental state. For that reason, while <i>Ladies of Leisure</i> gave Barbara Stanwyck her break out role and is an enjoyable, well made melodrama, there is an ugliness at its core that is slightly less palatable. Hollywood didn't owe her a living, but it did owe her a bit more dignity.</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-78252372797379235622016-05-31T15:13:00.000-07:002016-06-01T16:57:40.501-07:00The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942) - Mantan Moreland Gives Another Masterclass in Scene Stealing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwH6EFDj3uSIDwYgSfMxc-XXCjlOk0N5HT20WDOJEGMoUwFYrLJtBJ5GisHHOy8s-zWuXayW4eVJJFyEnhqpXX7O3VO8GPXMsXpgSUJyfU4LfHdh5ShIuR3f2avLaYStHZ4ZldpKg2cZM/s1600/Doctor+Rx+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwH6EFDj3uSIDwYgSfMxc-XXCjlOk0N5HT20WDOJEGMoUwFYrLJtBJ5GisHHOy8s-zWuXayW4eVJJFyEnhqpXX7O3VO8GPXMsXpgSUJyfU4LfHdh5ShIuR3f2avLaYStHZ4ZldpKg2cZM/s400/Doctor+Rx+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<em>The Strange Case of
Doctor Rx</em> is a decidedly lesser entry in the Universal horror and
mystery cycle and one which pretty much deserves its obscurity. It’s
a tale of avenging justice gone wrong, as our titular doctor embarks
on a gruesome killing spree of recently acquitted criminals. As the bodies pile up, the police and
private detective Jerry Church race against time to find the
culprit’s true identity. As a brief plot synopsis the story sounds fairly
interesting, but in execution the movie is anything but. What
could have been an engaging whodunit is marred by the inclusion of
far too many characters, a romantic subplot that descends into
endless quarrelling, an all too obvious red herring and generally
just far too much talking to pad out the film’s paltry 62 minutes.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By the time the mystery is solved, it’s difficult to care
who Doctor Rx really is, let alone why he has been bumping off criminals. In
fact there is instead a lingering resentment that he didn’t get his
act together and kill off most of the cast to spare us the endless
talking and bickering. So, you may ask, why am I bothering to write
about such an average and uninspiring little pot boiler of a movie?
The answer is simple - the inclusion in the cast of a certain actor who
singlehandedly makes the movie worth watching, one Mantan Moreland.
It’s been a while since I’ve had cause to write about Mantan but
if ever there was an example of his unique charisma and innate
ability to rise above mediocre material, it’s his performance in
<em>The Strange Case of Doctor Rx</em>.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Here, Mantan Moreland is
billed ninth and not even included in the opening credits, only the
closing ones. Yet despite this he has more screen time than practically
any character other than the two leads, Patric Knowles and Anne
Gwynne. Sadly, one can only draw an obvious and disappointing
conclusion as to why this is, and it is certainly a far cry from his
featured billing while working at Monogram. Moreland, true to form for
black actors in Hollywood in the 40s, plays the lead character’s
manservant, but thankfully this time his role is extended beyond mere (ahem) stepping and fetching. His character, Horatio B. Fitz Washington is an
interesting precursor to the role he would become most famous for,
that of Birmingham Brown in the Charlie Chan movies starting in 1944.
Here he is somewhat braver than the usual stock African American
servant character, and despite being loyal to his ‘boss’ still
gets a few good one liners in response to Patric Knowles’ at times obnoxious and unlikable character. There’s an obvious
influence in the development of these sort of roles in the popularity
of Eddie Anderson as Rochester in the <em>Jack Benny Program</em> on radio,
though I don’t doubt for a minute that Mantan Moreland getting
this kind of part has just as much, if not more to do
with Moreland’s own comic gifts. Nevertheless, it’s always good to see
him get a lot of screen time, even if this was only ever to happen in
B movies.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0aYWdNdZ3ot-unRKXZKOBrmMlKvfCplvNn_C6zKyZDxInp9Z_0C2UB43a0939piay_8FAmiEzwPOAEhEweFKp-m7ixhVE-9COk1JXZeXZDNHaYrDbqP7FO55ZqAGK2_diqaQBERijbY/s1600/Doctor+Rx+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0aYWdNdZ3ot-unRKXZKOBrmMlKvfCplvNn_C6zKyZDxInp9Z_0C2UB43a0939piay_8FAmiEzwPOAEhEweFKp-m7ixhVE-9COk1JXZeXZDNHaYrDbqP7FO55ZqAGK2_diqaQBERijbY/s400/Doctor+Rx+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As mentioned, the film
itself isn’t particularly memorable, and the script is fairly dull,
but more than any other cast member Mantan Moreland wrings out every
drop of potential in the bland words. It’s no exaggeration to say
he steals every scene he is in and makes tired old situations at least
vaguely amusing. He expertly manages to give his stock character a glimmer of
an inner life just by his reactions and the small movements he makes.
This is evident from his first scene where he answers the door
carrying a radio (helpfully tuned to a news broadcast and filling us
in on the plot) to get a telegram. The delivery boy asks whether
Washington is a place or a name and Mantan snaps back “Ain’t you
never heard of Washington? Ain’t you studied your history? You
don’t know nothin’” , then proudly declares “That’s the
greatest name there is!”. His indignant eye rolls and incredulity
at the question show him to be a man of pride and despite being a
valet, knows that even he is better than a no nothing delivery boy.
As the scene goes on there’s a lovely bit of business as he stares
at the delivery boy then makes out that the boy is looking at the
radio, which he then protectively tucks under his arm. Moments like that
can’t possibly be in the script but are the little details that
Mantan adds to his performance which enable him to stand out in an otherwise run of the mill movie. </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It really is the small
details that make the difference all throughout the picture. For
example, at one point he rushes to answer the phone then realises the
receiver is upside down. It’s a quick moment filmed in a long shot
so is not meant to ever be noticed but Mantan, ever the trouper, just
adds it in to get a brief laugh. Similarly in a scene where he is
talking to the police and realises there is a microphone in a nearby
lamp, he tilts the lamp in their direction as they speak, but does it
in a hilariously understated way that manages to be restrained yet
outrageous. His method is to tilt the lamp in an exaggerated manner
towards the talking cops while staring blank eyed and nonchalantly
into middle distance. It makes a brief yet memorably odd visual and
once again gets far more laughs that the script could possibly have
managed as written.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbY6QGvrmdlCBfrKfTLRqbAh0lmnn0lxmh7d2wIzVOWE-_lzy2bMWGczwH6dIx-Vmt9lzftKxbgu73Wedyex2SZD5g_86aeUah2Vxy0Ig7_zmOYyphlYe9zZi8e-4xunb7QpeX5wiB6g/s1600/Doctor+Rx+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXbY6QGvrmdlCBfrKfTLRqbAh0lmnn0lxmh7d2wIzVOWE-_lzy2bMWGczwH6dIx-Vmt9lzftKxbgu73Wedyex2SZD5g_86aeUah2Vxy0Ig7_zmOYyphlYe9zZi8e-4xunb7QpeX5wiB6g/s400/Doctor+Rx+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Possibly the highlight
of the movie is the chance to experience a great bit of comedy dream
casting as Mantan Moreland shares a short scene with the one and only
Shemp Howard. Shemp, at the time firmly established as a reliable
comic heavy and sidekick plays a dim witted police officer. Sadly all
the potential in his casting is largely wasted as he is reduced to
little more than reaction shots as others talk over him. However, in
a brief comic interlude the two titans of character comedy finally
meet and their timing and chemistry is a treat. The scene takes place
in a kitchen and Shemp, seeing a bottle of booze asks for some (the
only discernible character trait he has in the movie is that he likes
a drink) but Mantan wants some money for it. Eventually he offers to
roll dice for it, but Mantan firmly states that he doesn’t gamble.
Shemp then pulls out the dice and Mantan gives a little high pitched wince and
says “Oooh, on second thought maybe I might”. Again, while not
particularly funny on paper, the scene has great energy from the two,
with the rapid fire delivery and timing pitch perfect. Moreland’s
pacing here is reminiscent of his cadence in filmed versions of his famous
‘incomplete sentences’ routine with Ben Carter in vaudeville. What’s
interesting about both the performers is that they alternate at
being the straight man and take turns to attempting to one-up the
other. It’s one of those moments when you get to marvel at the
ability and versatility of two seasoned comedians who know their own characters so well, just going out
there and trying to get some laughs out of virtually nothing.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The end of the movie is
its highlight (and not because it is finally over), as Mantan is
kidnapped by the evil Doctor Rx to lure Jerry into his lair. At this
point the film just suddenly throws everything it has at the screen
and the now hooded doctor chains our hero to a gurney while
attempting to transfer his brain into that of a large caged gorilla
he happens to have as a pet. The fact that none of this is even
hinted at throughout the preceding 50 minutes just makes it all the more
mystifying, but at least it all goes out with a bang. Throughout this part of the movie
Mantan Moreland does a commendably good job of playing it straight. His tired, sweating face and monotone voice make him look like he
has been on the receiving end of some sort of torture and elicits genuine sympathy. His solemn phone call to Jerry under duress is perfectly judged, with the fact that he eschews the usual laughs making it all the more potent. When he is then forced to watch Jerry face the crazed gorilla, his horrified yet feeble cry of "Don't do that to my boss" immediately sells the seriousness of the situation. It's another testament to his likability that despite any racial connotations to the scene (a white hooded villain torturing a black man) it's more disturbing to see the effects of real violence on such a gentle man.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZIvqQ3l-66tyIEy4quxyISEveeKajfCb-XtWp8G_YbZ52SpHM1pOCraZB9VR8KnZDwVhk8tvrOTC4WXkb1JEXWUqvuYA0OGqn5scOzKgZuJl5EV2BLpEM_MGlpOUjb27dgBwaPxEg98/s1600/Doctor+Rx+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZIvqQ3l-66tyIEy4quxyISEveeKajfCb-XtWp8G_YbZ52SpHM1pOCraZB9VR8KnZDwVhk8tvrOTC4WXkb1JEXWUqvuYA0OGqn5scOzKgZuJl5EV2BLpEM_MGlpOUjb27dgBwaPxEg98/s400/Doctor+Rx+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What strikes me after
watching <em>The Strange Case of Doctor Rx</em> is that, if it were not
already obvious the movie industry missed the boat massively on
utilising the talents of Mantan Moreland. While I’m sure that due
to racial attitudes of the day, a great many African American actors
(and those of other ethnicities) were denied their chance to shine,
in the realms of comedy especially, Mantan’s absence hurts the
most. In a colour blind world,
Mantan Moreland could have easily become a featured solo comedian,
or at the very least part of a double act (a series of films with Ben Carter would have had potential). At an absolute minimum he should have had a short subject series for Columbia or RKO but it seems the world wasn't ready for it and our cinematic lives are thus poorer for it.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mantan Moreland may have had expert timing and comic reactions, and years of stage experience to help him
but what sets him apart from others so much is that he’s just so darn likable. He had a real and believable everyman persona, standing
outside of society (where all good comedians do, regardless of skin
colour) yet with an evident sense of self worth and value. He could be cowardly yet loveably pompous, street smart yet gullible and beyond the one liners and comic business was a fully formed comic original. Despite playing secondary roles for a lifetime, Mantan Moreland had
the ability to make us root for him, to overcome stereotypes and
displace prejudice with laughter. That alone should have been enough
to make him one of the great character comedians of his time, but it
was not to be. Luckily, movies like T<em>he Strange Case of Doctor Rx</em>
gave him enough screen time to show what he could do. And what he
could do was outshine most of the cast and steal the whole picture
from under them. Though, when you steal every scene you are in because you are just better than those around you, it's not really scene stealing, it's just called talent. </div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-46505732035292831942016-04-15T08:24:00.000-07:002016-04-15T08:24:14.554-07:00Snapshot # 6 - Beauty and the Boss (1932)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzg_KkA7V4BZAHeZDoV58U8GZL9C2GtxfZW1dmHc6Hw7hyphenhyphenMkKA4sbOJGy1aK4OXNfDHn4ZyTtlNJJ7OYcfEvtavEGBDOG-bSL5HuEGHhlACRfp22gC_xMea7t5hdP1m-EvcD3rSVRW6g/s1600/Beauty+%2526+Boss+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXzg_KkA7V4BZAHeZDoV58U8GZL9C2GtxfZW1dmHc6Hw7hyphenhyphenMkKA4sbOJGy1aK4OXNfDHn4ZyTtlNJJ7OYcfEvtavEGBDOG-bSL5HuEGHhlACRfp22gC_xMea7t5hdP1m-EvcD3rSVRW6g/s400/Beauty+%2526+Boss+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b>What is it about?: </b>Josef, a wealthy Viennese banker with an eye for the ladies has to fire his beautiful secretary for being too much of a diversion at work. He then hires Susie, a plain ‘church mouse’ of a girl who quickly organises his affairs and keeps him focused on his business. However, things change when Susie falls for her boss and begins to transform her appearance and use her womanly ways to catch his eye. <br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet: </b>Marian Marsh, Warren William, David Manners, Charles Butterworth, Frederick Kerr, Mary Doran, Lillian Bond, Yola d’Avril.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera:</b> Directed by Roy Del Ruth, Screenplay by Joseph Jackson from a play by Ladislas Fodor, Cinematography by Barney McGill, Art Direction by Anton Grot</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b> Adapted from the popular stage play <em>A Church Mouse</em>, <em>Beauty and the Boss</em> is another of the many Hollywood films of the 30s concerned with the lives and loves of the rich in Europe. In this case the action revolves around the affairs of the wealthy Viennese banker Baron Josef von Ullrich (Warren William), as he struggles to balance his work life with his love life. It is interesting to note that despite most of the protagonists being the titled rich or ladies of leisure, no hint of financial trouble either at home or abroad is mentioned. Instead, all the Baron’s problems are caused by his own actions, for the Baron’s Achilles heel is women, and when he carouses with the fair sex, he loses money. To this end, he cannot have a secretary who will distract him with her good looks, so decides to employ a rather plain girl to help him concentrate on his work. Of course, this being Hollywood, as soon as you can say ‘Ugly Duckling’, our plain Jane transforms herself into a ravishing beauty and the Baron is back where he started. </div>
<br />
It’s perhaps best to gloss over the inherent chauvinism of the story, with its ideas of a woman’s place (either by day or by night). Luckily the script skirts these issues with such a light touch, and the cast perform it with such aplomb that it’s difficult not to get wrapped up in the movie’s charms. Despite its outdated gender politics, the film is essentially a fairy tale wrapped up in a romantic, far off land of make believe (ie Europe), and that is all it is ever meant to be. While lacking the witty continental touch of a Lubitsch or Mamoulian, the movie does have a certain sophistication, and this is all down to the very capable presence of Warren William, as Baron Josef. He stamps the picture with his imposing presence, rattling off his lines in a gruff, confident manner as if he was born to be the head of a Viennese bank. Yet, between the lines William’s quick delivery and raised eyebrows belie a charming, rakish side. Despite playing such a patrician, sexist character he makes Josef immensely likable. He may be the head of a large bank but at heart all he wants to do is whisper sweet nothings to a beautiful woman. His first reaction upon seeing Susie all dressed up in a ball gown is to notice how smooth her “pretty little arms” are, which is a bit strange, but is endearing none the less. It’s a wonderful performance from Warren William, to the point that you can’t imagine any other actor taking the part and making it work so well. However, perhaps the strangest thing of all is that Warren William was only 37 when he made the film. That man was born middle aged!<br />
<br />
At its heart though, <em>Beauty and the Boss</em> is a battle of the sexes tale crossed with an ugly duckling story, and the bulk of the action and dialogue concerns those two themes. While not quite subversive or loud enough to be considered ‘screwball’ the film is essentially a comedy of manners, and with its sophisticated European setting and clash of cultures and social classes it plays out exactly the way you’d expect, and is reassuringly all the better for it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGrw8deDOwlSiW6nIH77pikbyAcijJhQwDcySTwcuo2HAA9hCDe1_3cl5Ov_chUjRJExIYbCIpDELINNNb-_lrVtL6eGF2NPtC7rJsgPyM9_bWKhn8bac_G_EemG_mW6cXYSCm-9dQxfE/s1600/Beauty+%2526+Boss+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGrw8deDOwlSiW6nIH77pikbyAcijJhQwDcySTwcuo2HAA9hCDe1_3cl5Ov_chUjRJExIYbCIpDELINNNb-_lrVtL6eGF2NPtC7rJsgPyM9_bWKhn8bac_G_EemG_mW6cXYSCm-9dQxfE/s400/Beauty+%2526+Boss+2.png" width="302" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances: </b>In a movie awash with talented players such as Warren William and Charles Butterworth it’s perhaps surprising that hands down, the star performance goes to sixth on the bill Mary Doran as the Baron’s jilted ex secretary Olive Frey. She is a breath of fresh air in a film that all too easily could have been static and stage bound, and her worldly wise yet peppy character is a delight. She displays a great deal of confidence in her scenes and has good chemistry with Warren William. In contrast, Marian Marsh, though generally quite appealing in her role as Susie, is given an overly verbose script which results in some stilted delivery on her part. The two actresses share a key scene and while Doran is sassy and relaxed, Marsh is stiff and laboured. Some of this is due to their respective characters but most of it seems a matter of screen presence and confidence. Doran goes on to have perhaps her best scene in the film where she tries to explain to Marsh that she doesn’t know how to use her womanly charms. She goes on to breathlessly explain how exhilarating it is to be a real woman then acts out the routine she uses to attract the attention of her suitors. The whole speech is wonderful, and acted with conviction and gusto. It’s definitely one for the audition show reel. All the while, Marian Marsh looks like she is reading from an auto cue, and the quality of her lines doesn’t help with gems like “How vulgar you are!” making her seem stiff and wooden. </div>
<br />
Although Marian Marsh does have some good scenes, Mary Doran uses her screen time better and consistently outshines the star to the point that it mystifies me as to why her cinematic legacy is not more significant. Doran is perhaps not quite conventionally pretty enough to be a leading lady, though she shines in close ups and has a dazzling smile. However, she’s got the sort of look that would have worked as a featured ‘other woman’ or best friend in a whole host of films (or at the very least, she would have been amazing as a regular in Hal Roach comedy shorts). Sadly, she had an all too brief career, only appearing from 1928 to 1936 generally in minor roles. However, on the strength of her charisma and charm in <em>Beauty and the Boss</em> I feel compelled to track down more of her work. Watch this space! <br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical Excellences: </b>The movie is directed with a sure hand by veteran Roy Del Ruth. While often workmanlike in his approach, Del Ruth always knew how to keep the pace flying along and his movies of the 30s move at a joyous pace, never outstaying their welcome. While there is nothing too interesting to be said about the way the film is shot, mention should be made of the impressive sets. There is a moment in the movie where Warren William chases Marian Marsh around the furniture in his room and the camera lifts up to an overhead crane shot as they frolic. It’s only then that you realise how massive the sets were in many of these movies. The room looks enormous, with every corner dressed the part. Obviously this was done for practical reasons but the sense of design and scale is impressive, especially in a ‘small’ film like this. It goes to show the craftsmanship put into all these movies, even on parts of a set that usually would never be glimpsed.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9b-JFawiXbptfIRnp1zuXNdUkML1Sh_anXL-W-oZmgXODGeucEJohGPZtJrXixRIx6JRs3CIPuxoyQbN4tRaFy7TJhuLLfE4Njbj-q4ms-h6rBAJLLarL3fm_Z0gdAarg2Q8Hf-QHcy0/s1600/Beauty+%2526+Boss+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9b-JFawiXbptfIRnp1zuXNdUkML1Sh_anXL-W-oZmgXODGeucEJohGPZtJrXixRIx6JRs3CIPuxoyQbN4tRaFy7TJhuLLfE4Njbj-q4ms-h6rBAJLLarL3fm_Z0gdAarg2Q8Hf-QHcy0/s400/Beauty+%2526+Boss+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>The best part of the movie is the opening scene between the Baron and his secretary Miss Frey. It’s a really well played scene that sets up the premise of the film perfectly and highlights the talents of Warren William and Mary Doran. Doran’s character exists to set up the entrance of Marian Marsh, the de facto star of the movie but in a way it’s a shame the movie didn’t continue her story as the jilted secretary. The scene starts with The Baron dictating at a terrific pace and Miss Frey struggling to keep up. She crouches slightly, revealing a low cut top and crosses her stocking clad legs (complete with a pan downwards by the camera, subtle as ever). Distracted by what he sees, the Baron chastises her to “Leave your skirt down during office hours”. Miss Frey replies “Well you dictate so fast I never know where my skirt is!” There then follows some cheeky innuendos about low cut tops, bare shoulders and his rapid dictation accompanied by Miss Frey’s frequent exclamation of “<em>Oh, Baron!</em>” (which, the way she says it is perhaps one of the raunchiest pre code things I’ve ever heard, Wheeler and Woolsey would have been proud!). </div>
<br />
The Baron then outlines his belief that “No woman should look pretty who works in a bank…the clerks become confused with their columns. It’s dangerous. Invites disaster”. All through this, the pretty Miss Frey gazes on in admiration until he decides it is too much and he fires her on the spot. Her face goes from a picture of happiness to a dejected pout, her little heart broken. Luckily this is just the beginning of a new role for Miss Frey, who the Baron believes was not cut out for secretarial work. He tells her she is “a girl for the evening, who I met unfortunately only in the daytime”. Immediately the truth dawns on her and Miss Frey is a ball of energy and glee once again. <br />
<br />
It’s a wonderfully played scene, with Warren William at his haughty patrician best, yet displaying a naughty twinkle in his eye. Mary Doran is a perfect partner for him, acting like a lovesick puppy - all big eyes and smiles and eager to please her man. Despite this she still knows her own worth and the power she can hold over men and so uses those self same big eyes and smiles to be flirtatious and coy to her own advantage. The relationship between the two characters seems warm and real, and while it probably couldn’t have sustained a whole movie, in these bite sized pieces, it’s the high point of the film.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aDtgso_z4XdjrviG6U9IPYRdwwlihCElX8Z1JKdna_7QAzYccwEBgvcY8emYtEbQHQ_4zPLAnct1f6c-QyT77HxZtmvuNiMmuC-PFVKAibYeoIONXqV_8HAZpDjhcwhAB6WZd88TDzk/s1600/Beauty+%2526+Boss+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aDtgso_z4XdjrviG6U9IPYRdwwlihCElX8Z1JKdna_7QAzYccwEBgvcY8emYtEbQHQ_4zPLAnct1f6c-QyT77HxZtmvuNiMmuC-PFVKAibYeoIONXqV_8HAZpDjhcwhAB6WZd88TDzk/s400/Beauty+%2526+Boss+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>When Marian Marsh’s Susie first appears she is poor, plain and nervous, a church mouse in appearance and manner. The only thing that stands out is her outfit, which seems to have been chosen from the costume department at Biograph circa 1912. With a dowdy long skirt, a straw hat complete with feather attachment and an umbrella, she is half Mary Poppins, half Victorian washer woman. Unfortunately she looks ridiculous and totally at odds with the way everyone else in the picture is dressed. I know the movie is set in Vienna, but somehow I doubt she is displaying the working class outfit of the day. To add to her problems her face is given the full pancake treatment to give her the appearance of being tired and plain. She has that weird look that the studios in the 30s and 40s gave to actresses when they wanted to make them appear to be elderly in order to (for example) tell a story in flashback. It’s strange that in order to give the impression she is wearing no make-up that they give her twice as much make up! The effect is disarming to say the least, like a sort of deathly apparition from the workhouse. Thankfully once she cleans herself up, though still tying her hair back severely, she begins to look more recognisable (and she also dispenses with her breathlessly wavering nervous voice). The transformation from church mouse to woman can’t come fast enough.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth watching?: </b>I’d recommend <em>Beauty and Boss</em> highly. It’s fantastic entertainment with a good cast, a sprightly pace and a script full of sharp humour and pithy remarks. Sure, you can see the end coming a mile off and the characters are at times portrayed with a lack of subtlety and the less said the better about the role it assumes of women but the whole production just radiates charm and fun. It’s a perfect pre code afternoon matinee, unassuming, genial and at times surprising. All in the company of a pitch perfect Warren William and a supporting cast of familiar faces and an overachieving starlet. What more could you ask for?</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote: </b>“Don’t squirm. I know you have hips!”</div>
</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-31592013757270364532016-02-09T15:26:00.000-08:002016-02-09T15:26:22.460-08:00Ronald Colman - 125 Years On, Still the Gentleman of the Screen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Htj6oqfgnwA62KhKGrGoADzuOIHIvL3K55FrmIkc9QPExak0RC7ILUejr5P_TojK1xGSfHuBXY289a_iknVfuEO-7Tfpo2A6WrHzVJAdDs59vUI8ogWmU0bf0VGO5bdg2lp5MZENles/s1600/Colman+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Htj6oqfgnwA62KhKGrGoADzuOIHIvL3K55FrmIkc9QPExak0RC7ILUejr5P_TojK1xGSfHuBXY289a_iknVfuEO-7Tfpo2A6WrHzVJAdDs59vUI8ogWmU0bf0VGO5bdg2lp5MZENles/s640/Colman+9.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Today, one hundred and twenty five years ago, Ronald Colman was born just outside of London, in Richmond, Surrey. It’s another of those impossible numbers when it comes to movie stars. I still have difficulty acknowledging that the actors who are such a large part of my life and thoughts are mainly the product of a long gone era. Film lends its leading lights such immortality that it’s difficult to associate the brightest of stars with a now largely disappeared, unreachable world. <br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thoughts of these vanished times are particularly appropriate when recalling of the kind of old world, gentlemanly charm that is associated with Ronald Colman. Lately his brand of worldly sophistication seems to have been overlooked in favour of imitators like David Niven and James Mason (or indeed George Clooney). I remember when I first discovered his films as a teenager, I decided to ask my father what his thoughts were. I knew he wasn’t my dad’s sort of star, he was more of a John Wayne and Gary Cooper person, but his one word reply to me forever stuck in my head: “<em>insipid</em>”. That response has often puzzled me, but I took it to be a criticism of his acting style, often seen as overly mannered. Maybe for many people he is indistinguishable from others in that group of smooth, cricket playing British gentlemen in Hollywood - the likes of Herbert Marshall, Basil Rathbone and Brian Ahern. Additionally, his distinctive voice and vocal delivery was in its day much parodied, so perhaps in the minds of some, he was so archetypal in his role that he became the archetype.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
However, these views do the man a great disservice. When someone becomes so famous that imitations become commonplace, you often lose sight of the qualities and subtleties of the original as all the details become glossed over by a catchphrase in the public consciousness (think the artistry of Frank Sinatra’s immaculate phrasing reduced to ‘do be do be doo’). For make no mistake about it, Ronald Colman is one of the greatest actors and stars the cinema has ever seen, a skilled performer of impeccable judgement, an honourable man who lived a life of integrity off screen and on and a true screen original who managed to make a deep and lasting connection with audiences all over the world.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoAvCAOfz5v3UJzkJYmuLtaYFKWDuFcR0_8SCcnKHiSYNRT8jbReb4s8OtLGYPYvI_QsinAXraiRY1TfWbh8DDdybde19RchECb5DFPgb9KJdcYzxgZzU85KVBRgTtbZJuClf7739Pn8/s1600/Colman+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuoAvCAOfz5v3UJzkJYmuLtaYFKWDuFcR0_8SCcnKHiSYNRT8jbReb4s8OtLGYPYvI_QsinAXraiRY1TfWbh8DDdybde19RchECb5DFPgb9KJdcYzxgZzU85KVBRgTtbZJuClf7739Pn8/s400/Colman+2.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ronald Charles Colman was born in Richmond in England on February 9<sup>th</sup> 1891, the son of a silk merchant, Despite attending boarding school his education was cut short due to a lack of money caused by his father’s sudden death. This led to a spell working as a clerk before joining the London Scottish Regiment of the army where he would see action fighting on the Western Front during the First World War. In October 1914, he received a serious shrapnel wound to his ankle and was invalided out of the army. He would recover from his wounds but walk with a slight limp for the rest of his life. For the 23 year old the war was over but Colman quickly got the acting bug and son started to appear in minor roles on the London stage. By all accounts he wasn’t a natural on stage and it took a number of years before he started to gain any parts of note but he steadily worked away at his craft.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By 1919 Colman’s good looks drew the attention of film makers and he appeared in a number of British silent films. It wasn’t until touring the American stage and co starring with George Arliss in the early 20s that he caught the eye of Hollywood, where director Henry King cast him as the lead in the Lillian Gish feature <em>The White Sister</em>. He was an immediate success and remained in starring roles for the remainder of his career. Colman was a versatile silent screen star, playing the adventurous, dark and handsome romantic leads in such notable movies as <em>Romola</em>,<em> Beau Geste</em> and <em>The Dark Angel</em>. Additionally he proved that he could also turn his hand to comedy with ease, as seen in Ernst Lubitsch’s production of <em>Lady Windermere’s Fan</em> and the bedroom farce of Clarence Brown’s <em>Kiki</em>. Colman co starred with many of the leading actresses of the day such as Lillian Gish, Barbara La Marr, Constance Talmadge and Blanche Sweet and as the silent era began its final years he reached new peaks of popularity for his screen partnership with Vilma Banky, at times rivalling the similar team of John Gilbert and Greta Garbo.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakZdQwZQsKQT04IzY8sv_-11CkAMoZguSoE3Zqsaju0iq2J-CTdJYLi3srv3rf0yK2_PGw4u2EnNR4u5uwUhKK_5H8vGpbL1qJynZtUuaRjkm6P4N3bUr151x2ROs3FYtbym9coHHPBA/s1600/Colman+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgakZdQwZQsKQT04IzY8sv_-11CkAMoZguSoE3Zqsaju0iq2J-CTdJYLi3srv3rf0yK2_PGw4u2EnNR4u5uwUhKK_5H8vGpbL1qJynZtUuaRjkm6P4N3bUr151x2ROs3FYtbym9coHHPBA/s400/Colman+8.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With the coming of sound to movies, Ronald Colman’s career never missed a beat. In fact, it cemented his star status and brought him to greater heights. It is difficult to think of a leading man of the silent era who survived sound better than Ronald Colman. Indeed, outside of Laurel and Hardy there isn’t anyone whose career benefitted more from the coming of the Talkies. Of course, Colman had the one thing so many of his contemporaries lacked, the smooth, velvety speaking voice that would become his trademark. Colman’s first sound film was <em>Bulldog Drummond</em> in 1929, which even today stands up as a fast paced, exciting adventure and showcases him as a natural in front of the microphone. It’s not just that his distinctive mellow tones were finally unleashed on the world, it’s the way he carries himself. He shows no hesitancy in delivering lines, he refrains from theatrical silent film acting and yet neither does he merely stand still and deliver his lines as if in a stage show. He is a flurry of movement, intimate glances and subtle inflections. He hits the ground running in his sound debut, showing a mastery of the new medium and arriving on screen a fully formed cinematic character.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Colman, who had a long term contract with Samuel Goldwyn, continued to make films regularly throughout the early 1930s. He starred with the likes of Kay Francis in <em>Raffles</em> and <em>Cynara</em>, Loretta Young in <em>The Devil to Pay!</em> and <em>Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back</em> and Helen Hayes and Myrna Loy in <em>Arrowsmith</em> to name a few. These films are great examples of 1930s Anglophile Hollywood at its best with their tales of honour and sacrifice, exiled nobility and gentlemen adventurers, and all delivered with the clipped, cultured tones that were a million miles away from the likes of Warner Brothers Depression era social dramas. Nevertheless, these films provided the right degree of romance and escapism and did much to solidify Ronald Colman’s fame and popularity not only in America but in Britain where he regularly topped the box office rankings. In fact the UK published World Film Encyclopaedia in 1933 called him “probably the most consistently popular actor in American films ”. </div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
With the release of 1935’s A Tale of Two Cities, Colman’s career began a new phase. Despite the frequency of his film appearances slowing down to around one a year, the remainder of the 30s was a fruitful time for Colman, producing many of his most iconic roles. In fact, the combination of <em>A Tale of Two Cities</em> (1935), <em>Lost Horizon</em> (1937) and <em>The Prisoner of Zenda</em> (1937) and <em>The Light That Failed</em> (1939) provided Ronald Colman with virtual screen immortality, and an almost mythical celluloid persona. In all four films he plays an everyman character seeking a universal truth despite insurmountable odds. In <em>Lost Horizon</em> he perfectly encapsulates the ideals of the story, of an ordinary man pushed to the limit to discover the eternal unknowable secret of Shangri La and his need to believe that such a place can exist. Colman imbues the part with such humanity that it makes the viewer wish that they too had his sense of idealism and courage. With these four powerhouse performances Colman made his mark on the cinematic consciousness. His career after this point continued to be successful but these years were undoubtedly his most memorable.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzACQSWWY-n-kySDvs_3D6rmeKKD0IFM1m9cGt17PdkApVvwGXflqBguWJCv4eoND_pSH9RwNMQELMRrU42yUu0VJ6k2BwRldZfN2NGIRNNjqRabrtVVScRmolfyLAfMD2EdbhF-HsbG0/s1600/Colman+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzACQSWWY-n-kySDvs_3D6rmeKKD0IFM1m9cGt17PdkApVvwGXflqBguWJCv4eoND_pSH9RwNMQELMRrU42yUu0VJ6k2BwRldZfN2NGIRNNjqRabrtVVScRmolfyLAfMD2EdbhF-HsbG0/s400/Colman+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The 1940s and beyond resulted in a further slowdown of Colman’s output but still resulted in some well remembered parts in movies such as <em>The Talk of the Town</em> and <em>Random Harvest</em>. Finally, in 1948 his hard work and talent was rewarded for when he won both the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actor with his stunning performance as a tortured Shakespearian actor in the previous year’s <em>A Double Life</em>. After this triumph he made his last starring role in 1950’s underrated comedy <em>Champagne for Caesar</em> and then made only a couple of appearances in ensemble cast spectaculars after that. He left a cinematic legacy of modest numbers but high quality, with each and every performance full of the conviction and integrity he was renowned for. There simply are no bad performances in his back catalogue</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
While Ronald Colman was a movie star of the highest order, was also a pioneer of television and a regular voice on radio. Colman frequently lent his soothing tones to drama anthologies such as <em>Lux Radio Theater </em>and <em>Screen Guild Theater</em> and hosted (and sometimes starred in) a few of his own drama shows like the wartime <em>Everything for the Boys</em>. Later he starred in the popular sitcom <em>The Halls of Ivy</em>, which successfully transferred to television (and how many silent leading men survived not one but <em>two</em> industry shaking changes?). Colman was a natural on radio, and as would be expected his voice alone was enough to charm the vast listening audience. However, the place where Colman shone the brightest on radio was in a most unexpected place – <em>The Jack Benny Program</em>. Ronald Colman and his wife the actress Benita Hume first appeared on the show in 1945 and continued with regular appearances through to 1951 (with an additional appearance on the television version in 1956). </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4u5EbSi60RsBDZM574930QgRFWE3Rhc2tKoQE7EYyB81CF1-pZIGEA72S1wHFHplzkgPMCjG0Wm9pH7FJEJZpZK1oTrodDU8PvoTV2KyAukvgDnyTd78QSCcOVJzin6YJi42KysXUnQg/s1600/Colman+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4u5EbSi60RsBDZM574930QgRFWE3Rhc2tKoQE7EYyB81CF1-pZIGEA72S1wHFHplzkgPMCjG0Wm9pH7FJEJZpZK1oTrodDU8PvoTV2KyAukvgDnyTd78QSCcOVJzin6YJi42KysXUnQg/s400/Colman+7.jpg" width="295" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They played Jack’s long suffering neighbours and each week endured the social embarrassment of Jack's oafish attempts to befriend them. Jack was the neighbour from hell, selfishly inviting himself over for dinner or borrowing things without asking, and blissfully unaware of the trauma he caused the Colmans (who would usually try to hide when they saw him). Of course, being terribly British about it all the couple tried to be polite and the resulting predicament showed Colman’s flustered yet pained and witheringly dry comic abilities at their best. If you know little of Ronald Colman past his movies, the Jack Benny appearances are a revelation. In one memorable storyline, Jack borrows Ronnie’s Oscar then promptly gets it stolen and the ensuing attempts to get it back before he realises are some of the funniest radio shows of all time. And each step of the way Ronald Colman (and Benita) match Benny gag for gag (though Benny had a habit of giving the best lines to his guest stars).<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZr72bp5HXjS65SuTFbscavOXNKK9Sbvbr46Ez_KyFfjNGy5yFK1lJVcvmtgHfwEmu_QEhyhbkCsh7wvZLboGDpqPwqLpEjMRSFVqaYw609YAa0P_IX_PG234irvG8PcR0dtf_amGAdAY/s1600/Colman+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZr72bp5HXjS65SuTFbscavOXNKK9Sbvbr46Ez_KyFfjNGy5yFK1lJVcvmtgHfwEmu_QEhyhbkCsh7wvZLboGDpqPwqLpEjMRSFVqaYw609YAa0P_IX_PG234irvG8PcR0dtf_amGAdAY/s400/Colman+6.jpg" width="296" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Whatever medium he appeared in, the appeal of Ronald Colman was in what he represented. His characters were invariably courageous, charming, kind, romantic, dignified and yet driven by a steely eyed determination to find truth. Yet, in all these parts and in real life he was never anything less than a gentleman. In her autobiography Myrna Loy has a charming story about working with him on <em>The Devil to Pay! </em>in 1930 :</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
"At one point I became nervous about a scene we were doing. "Courage, my sweet," he kept saying in that beautiful voice of his. "Courage, my sweet." I liked him very much then, and later on, when we used to see quite a bit of him socially. But he was an <em>Englishman</em>, you know, in every sense of the word."</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Ronald Colman died in 1958 aged just 67 and with him died a particular type of old world charm and values. It’s no coincidence that Colman’s cameo on Michael Anderson’s <em>Around the World in 80 Days</em> in 1956 was as a Railway Official stationed at the furthest reaches of the Indian rail system. As the train reaches the end of its long journey and the steam subsides by the platform the dapper figure of Ronald Colman appears – the reassuringly familiar face in a hostile environment and the personification of the British Empire at the edge of the globe, clinging to decency as the world around him changes forever. It’s a highly symbolic appearance, a summation of a career and the celebration of an ideal that was beginning to fade away as the 1950s drew to a close. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN71K-jevsRQlQluATpmLHNxyKrmoJH2lk2mRFTUFuPMTzMqBbjWzV6zb_uAVfMdWJ95ZxY1YzjhNtXByshLUMaNvUygIV_KAGm_fsEMTnfhrWSjx3Yr7YwV3x735gFEtjmQ1iGv_RJkM/s1600/Colman+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN71K-jevsRQlQluATpmLHNxyKrmoJH2lk2mRFTUFuPMTzMqBbjWzV6zb_uAVfMdWJ95ZxY1YzjhNtXByshLUMaNvUygIV_KAGm_fsEMTnfhrWSjx3Yr7YwV3x735gFEtjmQ1iGv_RJkM/s400/Colman+4.jpg" width="255" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It’s perhaps what he represents that has made Ronald Colman less well remembered than many of his contemporaries today. In this day and age all too often common decency and quiet determination are overlooked in favour of the brash and the loud. When I was younger I idolised Cary Grant for this suave sophistication but later when I became a fan of Ronald Colman, Grant’s manner seemed irritatingly hyperactive and borderline rude compared to the understated appeal of Colman. Just a glance, a twinkle in his eye and few words in that reassuring voice could convey so much about what is good in the world, and more importantly, what <em>could be</em> good. Off screen and on, Ronald Colman embodied a sense of decency, of unwavering determination and of easy going, wryly self effacing charm that made him so beloved and respected for generations. Perhaps more than any other movie star he’s the man I choose to live vicariously through, and the man whose ideals I strive to achieve. Like Shangri La it’s an unreachable goal, but definitely one worth trying for.</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-34964883963720812792016-01-30T16:40:00.000-08:002016-01-30T16:40:45.395-08:00God's Gift to Women (1931) - Louise Brooks, Joan Blondell and Laura La Plante: Three Women Fight Over Frank Fay, One Wins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCoHPqRly5MWqoMg318aakeHHkto8u0xjQttoflEAl0_O-KR66GoSjipswoQEFnAeGZM07yrXZ7-TQycret9vXs6nCmVarhZWIYfuILvWk67rzD1uJB0yUpbqLQ2tWwWLB-0C5i8Blw4/s1600/Gods+Gift+to+Women+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCCoHPqRly5MWqoMg318aakeHHkto8u0xjQttoflEAl0_O-KR66GoSjipswoQEFnAeGZM07yrXZ7-TQycret9vXs6nCmVarhZWIYfuILvWk67rzD1uJB0yUpbqLQ2tWwWLB-0C5i8Blw4/s400/Gods+Gift+to+Women+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Frank Fay was a fast talking Broadway star who was snapped up by Warner Brothers for a string of talkies at the dawn of sound. The hope was that with his immense stage popularity and gift of the gab the studio could make him into an attractive new star to give a boost to the fledgling technology. Sadly, his personality didn’t catch on big with the movie going public and by the time he made <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> in 1931 we find him near the end of his contract, looking tired and exhausted after a rough couple of years in Hollywood. By all accounts Fay wasn’t the easiest of men to like, as he was known to be incredibly egotistical and his marriage to Barbara Stanwyck was a tumultuous affair which did his standing no favours. A lot of his early films miscast him as a ladies’ man, and <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> is no different. Here he plays Toto, a modern day Don Juan, with an insatiable eye for the ladies and a reputation as an incorrigible rake. Despite this he somehow manages to fall in love with demure society girl Diane (Laura La Plante) and he resolves to mend his ways. A sudden life threatening heart ailment appears to seal the deal, but unfortunately his many previous girlfriends have other plans and continue to fight over him (well, he is God’s gift to women…)<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So there you have it, the set up for an entertaining Pre Code bedroom farce, full of knockabout comedy, racy one liners, daring fashions and familiar faces. However, in reality the movie just doesn’t quite work. It may be the fact that Frank Fay just doesn’t suit the role, or that he talks incessantly to the point of distraction, or that the whole set up is just too preposterous to take seriously. It’s a fun, diverting movie but nothing to write home about (or in a blog for that matter). Based on that, the movie would probably deserve to be largely forgotten and consigned to gather dust in a darkened vault surrounded by Frank Fay’s other pictures. </div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And that would be its fate if not for, in hindsight a very interesting bit of casting that keeps the film alive in the minds of film fans. For not only does <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> contain one of the few featured sound roles of Louise Brooks, but it also has Joan Blondell in her sixth feature film appearance. And to make it even more interesting, they appear together! And they wrestle each other on a bed! Sometimes the random cast lists thrown together in the days of the contract studio players result in some very odd and interesting pairings. Often, when past and present collide you get to see stars of different eras or on different career trajectories briefly work together. Vilma Banky and Edward G. Robinson in <em>A Lady to Love</em>, Al Jolson and Harry Langdon in <em>Hallelujah, I’m a Bum!</em>, Clara Bow and Jean Arthur in <em>The Saturday Night Kid</em> or even John Gilbert and the Three Stooges in <em>The Captain Hates the Sea</em> are examples of this intriguing clash of eras that spring to mind but there are surely many more.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> we have the effervescent spirit of the Flaming Youth meeting the epitome of Depression era sass, and stuck in the middle is pretty but dull Laura La Plante. The result is a film with three actresses all at different stages of their careers and going in three entirely different directions. Here the past, the present and the future co-exist in the movie in the forms of Louise Brookes, Laura La Plante and Joan Blondell respectively. <br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwfzfQGFPJ4a6D-rt8WCPRBsCVGLX-DE5dyylIXEaEPyyiUKGj4w8AY_rgZV4D-vkt_f2vUkh34BElM9OENGv0d69xFQkmMb0OR3no8JhwohCA3a4IFJ1D_4QoUreZ2IZOhuTxoiLQAq0/s1600/Gods+Gift+to+Women+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwfzfQGFPJ4a6D-rt8WCPRBsCVGLX-DE5dyylIXEaEPyyiUKGj4w8AY_rgZV4D-vkt_f2vUkh34BElM9OENGv0d69xFQkmMb0OR3no8JhwohCA3a4IFJ1D_4QoUreZ2IZOhuTxoiLQAq0/s400/Gods+Gift+to+Women+7.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By the time she filmed <em>God’s Gift to Women</em>, Laura La Plante had enjoyed a film career for over a decade, attaining great success as a silent leading lady for Universal. She is perhaps best remembered in silent pictures for the 1927 version of <em>The Cat and the Canary</em>, directed by Paul Leni. When sound arrived she made a fairly seamless transition, first starring in the popular part talkie <em>Show Boat</em>. She continued making films for Universal, but after leaving them in 1930 she bounced around the studios for a couple of years before retiring in 1935. In<em> God’s Gift to Women</em> she is still a top billed star and a leading lady, but there is the distinct feeling that time and the competition is catching up with her. A lot of silent stars seem to have been given a run of sound films as a sort of courtesy since they were stars (providing their voice was good enough). Actresses like Olive Borden and Billie Dove made a string of sound films as headline attractions then either moved down the playbill or disappeared altogether. Laura La Plante lasted a bit longer than many other silent stars but on the strength of <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> it’s clear that she was on borrowed time. She’s perfectly acceptable in her role as society girl Diane but she lacks that certain something to make her special. Her voice is good, apart from a tendency to over enunciate her lines, and she handles the comedy fairly well but nothing about her stands out. She is one of many leading ladies of the Pre Code era whose pretty, aristocratic and virtuous nature began to look a bit old fashioned once the Depression fully kicked in. When you consider the new talent coming up in 1931 as competition it’s easy to understand why early retirement was a sensible and dignified option for Laura La Plante and many like her.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmKaYrgfpzFzCPC9nPmAAiJ05LL56YOfImeHbkhapv1BaoF6kg9opzCzFEK3TPkPP410rsSJeSelnMP2HkwugpCe_sZa9Qp9nXoYnrOJVv4nvrqI9Wju9GD9lTNdsorvAQFlyuAq7_AlE/s1600/Gods+Gift+to+Women+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmKaYrgfpzFzCPC9nPmAAiJ05LL56YOfImeHbkhapv1BaoF6kg9opzCzFEK3TPkPP410rsSJeSelnMP2HkwugpCe_sZa9Qp9nXoYnrOJVv4nvrqI9Wju9GD9lTNdsorvAQFlyuAq7_AlE/s400/Gods+Gift+to+Women+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
On the other hand, Louise Brooks’ career was on the downward spiral by 1931 having returned from Europe to the Hollywood scene she loathed so much. I must admit at this point that whilst I understand Brooks’ importance as an icon of style and independent spirit, as an actress I don’t see what all the fuss is about. When she’s lit and filmed correctly she does have a transcendent beauty but out of this gaze she has little else going for her compared to many of her contemporaries (especially someone like Colleen Moore). A great star is a star wherever they go but in Louise Brooks’ case, she is only good when handled correctly and that to me is a limiting factor in her legacy. Additionally I always get the feeling that making films in Hollywood was such a chore to her and there are certainly times in <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> where she looks positively embarrassed to be slumming it in such nonsense. She plays Florine, one of Toto’s many girlfriends and she really only has one notable scene. Under doctor’s orders Toto is to stay away from women in order to stop him having an aneurism. She arrives to find that her rivals are also there and ends up having a cat fight with Joan Blondell and Yola d’Avril. Her initial appearance is filmed in profile, with her face almost turned away from the camera and her famous bob covered by a hat. It’s in these scenes, her signature look obscured, that you realise that if you didn’t know who she was she wouldn’t be making as much of an impression. She certainly has some charms but whether she truly thought the whole enterprise was beneath her or she was just tired of the Hollywood rat race, it’s clear her heart isn’t in it. However there is a reaction shot at the end of the scene of just her face in close up that is filmed perfectly and for a few seconds the familiar Louise Brookes look emerges. However, it’s a fleeting glimpse of a star whose best work was firmly behind her.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7qU4MBqvan8xYnOumyoZr4XbaxHOYz-Le3SjmfbqXGaoBW1rjRmrYJ2tv1NhHMwVsp25JlwTZ9Ytc-P6OX9tenQQ_nfBqac-ouhV3bTV9Vj9e_StnkkAVFxyIo4_Pd6FYIH7_fuwM1o/s1600/Gods+Gift+to+Women+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7qU4MBqvan8xYnOumyoZr4XbaxHOYz-Le3SjmfbqXGaoBW1rjRmrYJ2tv1NhHMwVsp25JlwTZ9Ytc-P6OX9tenQQ_nfBqac-ouhV3bTV9Vj9e_StnkkAVFxyIo4_Pd6FYIH7_fuwM1o/s400/Gods+Gift+to+Women+3.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lastly we have Joan Blondell playing Fifi, another in Toto’s harem of beautiful women. The film finds Blondell less than a year into her movie career and in her highest placing so far on the playbill (3rd). She was still eight months away from her breakout performance in <em>Blonde Crazy</em> but was steadily climbing up the ladder as a fresh young face. Whereas Laura La Plante represented the typically conservative and virtuous leading ladies of the mainstream cinema thus far, and Louise Brooks a reflection of the high living Jazz Age flapper that was extinguished by the Wall Street crash, Joan Blondell gives us a glimpse of the modern woman of the 1930s. Although Frank Fay is fast talking and fairly animated throughout the film, he looks too middle aged and brings a tired vaudeville sensibility to the movie. In contrast, Joan Blondell is bursting with a fresh, new type of energy. In her first scene she lights up the screen with her big eyes, short blonde hair, wide smile and snappy delivery, and her pep and effervescence prove to be a lively interruption to the creaky old bedroom farce. She looks modern, talks modern and acts modern and seems at this early stage of her career to be well on the way to finding the screen persona that would define her in <em>Gold Diggers of 1933</em>. It’s actually amazing how charismatic she is despite such a lack of film experience and screen time. Just like Louise Brooks’ character, she visits Toto to nurse him back to health and bursts in wearing a patterned, figure hugging dress and throwing herself on him. Compared to Brooks and Yola d’Avril, who make the same sort of entrance, hers is the most memorable and energetic. She then shows an excellent grasp of comic timing (something Laura La Plante struggles with at times) saying that her husband “is ferocious when he’s jealous. He kills people” The pause and the delivery of the punchline combined with a wide eyed look towards Fay at just the right moment is a brilliant piece of business and far more skilful than much of the stilted delivery and hammy acting throughout most of the film. The point is, that fledgling star Blondell is a real breath of fresh air in the movie and has future star written all over her. <br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHZUkvUz4PuOLCIpyMigjjs0aO7QFeXAC30xmgXSlTeU_jz7FDXPYTYLPV3hvxF5zvWSltXBSmHhUjjIFLeMQ0ba8PQ8lW_-QavvPTtRH3t9Fl7JJGqh5qIC-PzTZxhQGj31kYx_zIus/s1600/God%2527s+Gift+to+Women+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFHZUkvUz4PuOLCIpyMigjjs0aO7QFeXAC30xmgXSlTeU_jz7FDXPYTYLPV3hvxF5zvWSltXBSmHhUjjIFLeMQ0ba8PQ8lW_-QavvPTtRH3t9Fl7JJGqh5qIC-PzTZxhQGj31kYx_zIus/s400/God%2527s+Gift+to+Women+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of course all this is with the benefit of hindsight. Contemporary audiences watching the movie would have accepted La Plante as a proper star player, may have remembered Louise Brooks as a star from the past and would have thought Joan Blondell was one of many up and coming young actresses that were regularly appearing on the screen. However, knowing what we know now, we see the three stars in a considerably different light. Joan Blondell obviously has charisma and star quality in spades and her appearance fits into the story of her hard working rise to the top of 30s cinema. Laura La Plante’s career has sadly now been largely forgotten and if she is remembered at all it is for her silent work, not her polite but dull sound roles. And Louise Brooks is an eternal icon, far more famous than her actual screen career ever deserved, but her story and life as a Hollywood free spirit continues to strike a chord with successive generations. Her appearance in <em>God’s Gift to Women</em> is a footnote in her career, though due to her fame reviews of the movie nowadays seem to centre on her performance, uneventful though it is. </div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When all is said and done, of the three women, Joan Blondell owns the movie. Hers is a dynamic, sarcastic and peppy character that would highlight the way for a decade of hard working chorus girls, quick witted screwball heroines and down of their luck ladies of ill repute. She is effortlessly of her time, and the other two would quickly be left behind as tastes changed. One star fell because she couldn’t keep up with the new generation, and the other because she didn’t want to. In the middle of these women was Frank Fay, whose own career was on borrowed time (for about twenty years at least). <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVzmYLVX7Sr-xVeFNg2WdfUpD1OzLOWbRhVv_LGT2E75EpCK5okgocmjBkPjg1-aPpu9DetK04kdcqf_teK1x6eCfLtWqiMNVsU5qe_FvI0GEDGMJZyQC5UgRrm9fAe9NSpRU3PjyytA/s1600/Gods+Gift+to+Women+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVzmYLVX7Sr-xVeFNg2WdfUpD1OzLOWbRhVv_LGT2E75EpCK5okgocmjBkPjg1-aPpu9DetK04kdcqf_teK1x6eCfLtWqiMNVsU5qe_FvI0GEDGMJZyQC5UgRrm9fAe9NSpRU3PjyytA/s400/Gods+Gift+to+Women+8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<em>God’s Gift to Women</em> is, like I said, a nice little diversion highlighted by some dream casting. It’s not often you get to see Louise Brooks and Joan Blondell wrestle on a bed in nurses' uniforms, but it happened, and the world is a better place for it. Watching the scene it’s interesting to note that Joan Blondell really puts her heart into the catfight and appears far more animated (and possibly violent) than her co-stars. Louise Brooks looks awkward and embarrassed and Laura La Plante isn't even in the scene (she's far to well mannered). And in a way that works as a representation of their respective careers by 1931 (of course, in the long run Louise Brooks' fame outshone everyone but that’s another story). The lesson to be learned is that when the old stars start to fade, there's always a fresh and eager new face to take their place. Sometimes it’s survival of the fittest, and in 1931 Joan Blondell was the new breed clawing her way up, and Louise Brooks, Laura La Plante and Frank Fay, in the cruel jungle of Hollywood with its fickle and precarious ladder of fame were about to run out of time. </div>
</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-62050734585618660622015-12-31T20:43:00.000-08:002016-01-02T08:21:26.333-08:00Snapshot # 5 - Ladies' Man (1931)<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtkcs0vgDrWIUJ2kyNfyLo5Qn59DbLf2FPwQ5GcpQAzgXN18u90PePZnzbRymIaFPX7TGRjHXSRLXa_LhxIpnHk6kRFYYOhYlQpsfA6EWdHGX-5vfX1iZ0xfhlepJ8RBESuWjELMSygBE/s1600/Ladies+Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtkcs0vgDrWIUJ2kyNfyLo5Qn59DbLf2FPwQ5GcpQAzgXN18u90PePZnzbRymIaFPX7TGRjHXSRLXa_LhxIpnHk6kRFYYOhYlQpsfA6EWdHGX-5vfX1iZ0xfhlepJ8RBESuWjELMSygBE/s400/Ladies+Man.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b>What is it about?: </b>A
notorious society gigolo wines, dines and beds a wealthy socialite
and then her daughter but finds it difficult to escape the
consequences of his lifestyle when he meets someone he really loves.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet:
</b>William Powell, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard, Olive Tell, Gilbert
Emery</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera:</b>
Directed by Lothar Mendes, Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz from a
story by Rupert Hughes, Cinematography by Victor Milner</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b>
<em>Ladies’ Man</em> is a fairly routine and static melodrama whose
main selling point is its rather sordid story of Pre Code loose
morals. William Powell plays Jamie Darricott, the titular ‘Ladies’
Man’ (the film’s euphemism for gigolo) who is the escort of
choice for middle aged socialite Mrs. Fendley (played by Olive Tell).
Mrs. Fendley is rich and bored, as her husband is too busy making
money to take her to the opera and go to parties with her. The
perpetually jaded looking Jamie fulfils his position with a resigned
stoicism due to the fact that it provides him with money to keep up
the pretence that he is a gentleman. A complication arises when Mrs.
Fendley’s young daughter Rachel (Carole Lombard) falls for Jamie
and he obliges to her overtures, creating an odd ménage a trios
between mother, daughter and gigolo that is mildly distasteful even
in the context of Pre Code bad behaviour. Jamie eventually meets
Norma Page (Kay Francis), a fairly normal woman and they start a
relationship while Jamie attempts to extricate himself from the
entanglements of his profession and start a new life with Norma.</div>
<br />
From that brief
synopsis we find a movie shrouded in a bleak air of tragedy where
death constantly lurks. William Powell plays the part of Jamie in the
restrained manner of a man married to his fate and tired of life. In
Mrs. Fendley’s home he admires portraits of Catherine the Great and
her lover the statesman Grigory Potemkin (I love how 30s films
continually throw in these historical references assuming their
audience knew full well that they were talking about. I wonder how
many did? I had to look it up). They talk about how Potemkin ‘had
to die’ for loving Catherine but that it was ‘a glorious death’
for such a love. The relationship is brought up several times
throughout the film to remind us that following your heart results in
death.
<br />
<br />
Jamie finds something
to really live for when he meets Norma, but we know full well it is
doomed (and if we didn’t, the fact that Mrs. Fendley and her
daughter both proclaim that if Jamie doesn’t marry them they will
kill him <em>kind</em> of gives it away). At this point we are supposed to
feel some sympathy for Jamie’s dilemma, but it’s really difficult
not to think he has willingly and selfishly brought it all on
himself. Meeting Norma may have made him see the light and experience
real love but he is still unrepentant for his lifestyle and prefers
to blame busy husbands for creating the bored wives that provide a
living for him. It’s a testament to the screen persona of William
Powell that we feel anything at all for the cad.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhweMaCk0SaP1JuDbXDfAFG7v8OmtxjBTTkXnhkYXOV3zPgdRpS2BD-TzqsdujcRqZJa_igXSOkN2xL4hx9Ffv8lq10fLymN9ORbmfeyMjDFj419JVLbtIsbSAwZL7k-bmHgVD4CryJpBg/s1600/Ladies+Man+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhweMaCk0SaP1JuDbXDfAFG7v8OmtxjBTTkXnhkYXOV3zPgdRpS2BD-TzqsdujcRqZJa_igXSOkN2xL4hx9Ffv8lq10fLymN9ORbmfeyMjDFj419JVLbtIsbSAwZL7k-bmHgVD4CryJpBg/s400/Ladies+Man+4.jpg" width="330" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances:
</b>William Powell is<b> </b>his usual excellent self and without him
the movie would be like watching paint dry. He portrays Jamie
Darricott as a world weary, fatalistic traveller who is constantly
aware that his life can only end with premature death. Unfortunately
at times he is often <em>too</em> world weary which hurts the picture when the
poor dialogue and somnambulant pace really require a jolt of energy
and movement. Powell is good in the film but the restrictions of the
part really limit his ability to give his usual warm, assured
performance. Kay Francis, still a few films away from stardom gives a
rather charming performance as Norma. She is likable and feisty
despite her motivation being questionable (why exactly is she with
him?). Unfortunately she serves merely as window dressing for many of
her scenes, standing or sitting silently while other characters move
the plot on. However, it’s definitely a positive appearance for
her, and she has future star written all over her. Speaking of which,
the third part of the triumvirate of dream casting in the movie,
Carole Lombard acquits herself well as the highly strung daughter
Rachel. It’s not much of a part and indeed her character disappears
two thirds of the way through the movie but she shows poise and
charm. The scenes where she is blind drunk and acting alternately
silly then threatening are particularly good. Finally, plaudits must
also go to Olive Tell as the bored society wife who starts the whole
sorry mess. She looks and sounds like the typical middle aged
socialite of so many classic movies, yet instead of being shocked at
immoral behaviour, she is the one instigating it. It’s an
interesting role for her that continually plays against type.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical
Excellences: </b>There’s not much to report here sadly. The
direction by Lothar Mendes, is flat and uninspiring. The fact that he
had previously worked with William Powell and Kay Francis several
times seems to made no difference to the quality of their
performances and the generally static visual style. Looking at his
other directorial efforts of the period, this seems to be his
characteristic style and generally his films rise and fall based on
the script and the charisma of the actors. Sadly here, neither are
particularly inspiring, with Herman Mankiewicz’s script delivering
some of the most stilted and dull dialogue imaginable. On the plus
side, there are some lovely sets, particularly the hotel lobby set
and the various society balls portrayed in the film look like they
take place in some suitable grand surroundings. However, the flat
direction generally reduces such scenes to vacant wide open spaces.
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLreGZ2cxIHnXt-kdX5OkiT_6AENkAojyOwKqtY1TWv1JxpBFaYJtZD3qV8-n4Gr_61kjJKjTtdQQ7HtVMzuSus2-HgBfRuVTR1XJJY3Xjvc9Q5vJT7sobuaA2dapvZXP6FcMvjtQZx6U/s1600/Ladies+Man+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLreGZ2cxIHnXt-kdX5OkiT_6AENkAojyOwKqtY1TWv1JxpBFaYJtZD3qV8-n4Gr_61kjJKjTtdQQ7HtVMzuSus2-HgBfRuVTR1XJJY3Xjvc9Q5vJT7sobuaA2dapvZXP6FcMvjtQZx6U/s400/Ladies+Man+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>The
best bit of the movie is it’s finale, where Mr. Fendley finally
confronts Jamie about his dalliances with his family as a costume
ball is about to start. After a brief scuffle, Jamie falls to his
death from the hotel balcony and Mr Fendley takes his place leading
the procession at the ball. He walks with his wife as it slowly dawns
on her what he has done, his eyes glazed over as the police arrive.
It’s a really strong ending which in the hands of a better director
could have been a powerful scene of celebration slowly descending
into tragedy as the truth dawns on all involved. As it is it’s
still good, and capped off by Norma crying in the corner if the hall
as the dance begins. A policeman says to her “Were you in love with
him too?” and in a classic piece of Kay Francis tragedy she tearily
replies “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. He loved me. They
can’t take that away from me!”. She gives the camera a desperate,
hysterical look as the film ends, safely chalking up another entry in
the Pre Code book of miserable downbeat endings.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>Kay
Francis’ fashions. I don’t know who was responsible (sensibly the
guilty party is left off the credits) but she wears some truly
ridiculous outfits in Ladies’ Man. First off she has a hand muff in
the hotel lobby that is the size of a baby seal (it may actually be a
baby seal). It’s so big it takes up most of a coffee table and
provides a useful ice breaker for Jamie to talk to her. Maybe that’s
why she was wearing it as it’s really difficult to miss. The film’s
designer then strikes again when it come to Kay’s evening wear. She
wears a fur coat that looks like a stuffed and mounted poodle lives
on her shoulders complete with a collar that even Liberace would say
“No, too much” when asked to wear. And after that there is her
dress. Wow. It’s a white (I think) number with polka dotted shiny
things on it that may or may not be bits of foil taped on, or the
entire 1931 supply of rhinestone, it’s difficult to tell. It also
seems to have bits that hang off it and move about and basically it
is a mess. From a distance it looks like a landing strip for a flying
saucer. If you need to see this film, if you <em>really</em> need to, it
should be to witness this monstrosity of misplaced glamour. No wonder
everyone at the nightclub was drunk - one look at her ensemble and
they were three sheets to the wind.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1lpUmaHfRxdGJOsXFXJ0IZBAkVaRgMCIEzTkNpy1MLMqyEzJBM7KPKDd-8LSwGlIbui2RO6nS2LkA-afJzgyV0ABoMRRMgVl1Bg5W6a0WsF1SFRs0h6wIkTH7KsNQ3WgBFp5hBzqEB4/s1600/Ladies+Man+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1lpUmaHfRxdGJOsXFXJ0IZBAkVaRgMCIEzTkNpy1MLMqyEzJBM7KPKDd-8LSwGlIbui2RO6nS2LkA-afJzgyV0ABoMRRMgVl1Bg5W6a0WsF1SFRs0h6wIkTH7KsNQ3WgBFp5hBzqEB4/s400/Ladies+Man+3.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth
watching?: </b>In a word, no.<b> </b>Unless you are a hardcore Pre
Code fan and have to see everything, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s
the sort of film that is interesting as a glimpse of the average
filler material thrown out to a public demanding constant product.
Not every film was a priority and contracts had to be met so the
result is a movie like <em>Ladies' Man</em>. It takes a well known star, a
couple of up and coming players and some veterans then throws
together a bunch of ‘scandalous’ tropes involving sinful
behaviour. Add some melodrama, a contract director and mix. Quite
watchable, with hints at greater things but ultimately average and
uninspiring. It’s the sort of picture that filled up the bill of an
evening’s entertainment and was then instantly forgotten. And let’s
face it, there’s nothing wrong with that.
</div>
<br />
Of course, with that
said, if you are true connoisseur of 30s high fashion and impeccable
glamour then <em>Ladies’ Man</em> is one of the <strong>greatest films ever made</strong>.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote: </b>“Women
are always waiting for someone, and then Mr. Darricott comes along!”</div>
</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-21532205317773254982015-09-23T12:22:00.000-07:002015-09-23T12:22:00.581-07:00Diplomaniacs (1933) - Wheeler and Woolsey Go to a Peace Conference, Freedonia and Klopstokia Are Not Invited...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-x3vvVKKJP7irrneApHPjhMEiBuA_6PBX7om6Yfhr75r2tP72AjoKmYNR-UXxNRTsPt86zdKRn-nS00rhkOEJmGahqoHgffQU8c3TZr1gpe7qRBzlRDBQEj9SJ60Gjl-5h-HddgWCmfA/s1600/Diplomanaics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-x3vvVKKJP7irrneApHPjhMEiBuA_6PBX7om6Yfhr75r2tP72AjoKmYNR-UXxNRTsPt86zdKRn-nS00rhkOEJmGahqoHgffQU8c3TZr1gpe7qRBzlRDBQEj9SJ60Gjl-5h-HddgWCmfA/s400/Diplomanaics.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
<em>Diplomaniacs</em> is, simply
put, a work of sheer insanity. It attempts to catch lightning in a
bottle in its heady synthesis of Broadway chutzpah and stream of
consciousness, rapid fire surrealism. Nothing makes sense, nothing is
taken seriously and everyone is fair game for being offended.. Upon
watching the movie, you have to wonder how this sort of stuff ever
got made. Was everyone at RKO drunk on bootleg gin? Did Wheeler and
Woolsey have <em>carte blanche</em> to do whatever whey wanted as long as it
made money? Did the desperate need to be entertained in the height of
the Depression lead to a style of humour that was only intelligible
at that particular time and largely baffling otherwise? There are so
many questions, but I suppose it really all comes down to context.
Context is everything.
<br />
<br />
It’s always difficult
to untie a film from the social and artistic circumstances of its
creation. <em>Diplomaniacs</em> is no different, as it exists both as an
entertaining comedy in its own right, but additionally as a film that
is difficult to untangle from the context of not only the Depression
but two of its very famous contemporaries: <em>Million Dollar Legs</em> and
<em>Duck Soup</em>. While the purpose of this little assessment is to look at it in
isolation, it would be remiss of me not to make brief mention its
esteemed cinematic bedfellows<br />
<br />
All three movies share
a similar plot and a bizarre sense of humour, combined with broad
satire and a number of shared actors and writers to form a trilogy of
sorts. <em>Million Dollar Legs</em> (released by Paramount in July 1932)
starring Jack Oakie and W. C. Fields got the ball rolling in a tale
of a mythical small country that decides to join the 1932 Olympics.
Woven around this story is a satire on international relations told
in a free wheeling surreal manner. Next on the radar is <em>Diplomanics</em>
starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (released by RKO in May
1933) and also dealing with international relations, but this time in
the form of a peace conference. The same irreverent sense of humour
is present due to the fact that both films share the same writer in
Joseph Manciewicz. These two movies could be seen as companion pieces
of sorts if not for the very obvious elephant in the room in the
shape of the most famous about diplomatic relations, the Marx
Brothers’ <em>Duck Soup</em> (the last of the bunch, released by Paramount
in November 1933). The most well known, better written and depending on
your tastes, possibly funnier of the three if anything is the most
restrained and coherent (and incidentally produced by Joseph
Manciewicz’s brother Herman)<br />
<br />
Much could be written
about the links and shared heritage of the three films but perhaps
that is for another day. To me, all three films do the same things in
subtly (and some not so subtly) different ways, and the success or
otherwise of the results are up to personal preference. However, in
this fight, I’m all for Team Wheeler and Woolsey.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNQJK0sCO35b02oV_-PC1kETAlm1PT35fnULRpxN-hkSZ8JIqhLq7dMzeIBlaCiC54O-VACgXfXj-cPRBJPS8EAEL9_ZL1PCWiYq5GRdrRFO10Exq_TjdOSnUMGRT65_EI03pjc0yTo8/s1600/Diplomaniacs+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNQJK0sCO35b02oV_-PC1kETAlm1PT35fnULRpxN-hkSZ8JIqhLq7dMzeIBlaCiC54O-VACgXfXj-cPRBJPS8EAEL9_ZL1PCWiYq5GRdrRFO10Exq_TjdOSnUMGRT65_EI03pjc0yTo8/s400/Diplomaniacs+5.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of the reasons I
like Wheeler and Woolsey so much is due to the haphazard nature of
their comedy. Whereas much has been written of the Marx Brothers’
ability to undermine societal institutions with their unrestrained
anarchy, their best work (though wonderful) always struck me as too
well thought out (or even intellectual) and structured to be truly
anarchic. This is in part due to the endless theatrical touring the
Marx Brothers did to get the routines and concepts of their
theatrical features hammered into shape. The end result is
brilliantly realised but often lacks a certain level of spontaneity.
Rather, it is a measured anarchy they present, and one that would be
diluted as studios got more involved with their creative process.
What sets the Marx Brothers apart from their contemporaries is their
uniform presentation of a rebellious attitude. They are a close knit
and clearly defined band of rebels whose primary purpose is to deflate pompous
authority. Also, their tightly written and perfectly performed
routines meant that they were more consistently entertaining, hitting
the target more often than not.<br />
<br />
Now, all of the above
is what makes the Marx Brothers so good. Ironically, I find that it
is the exact opposite that makes the best of Wheeler and Woolsey’s
comedies that tiny bit superior to the Marx Brothers in the anarchy
stakes. Their lack of critical praise, and their looser approach to
structure gives them a hint of danger, a position of real comedy outsiders.
Their movies give the sense of two performers not really caring what
they say or do, not caring who likes them or what the critics think
of them, and this attitude gives flight to some truly absurd, insane,
anarchic and downright offensive material. As with any comedians
working in this manner, the results are somewhat hit or miss, but the
best bits (and some of the worst bits too) are some of the most
gloriously inventive gags your are likely to see, years before
<em>Hellzappopin’</em> supposedly set the benchmark for surreal, ‘anything
can happen’ screen comedy.
<br />
<br />
<em>Diplomaniacs</em> is a
perfect example of Wheeler and Woolsey at the height of their powers
and exuding a confidence that leads itself to experimentation and
spontaneity. It’s a film where anything can and usually does
happen, where there are no sacred cows and where the sense of fun and
comic invention is palpable. And most wonderfully of all, not all of
it hits the target but it doesn’t stop them trying one bit. Here, Joseph
Manciewicz’s script works in perfect unison with the boys’
frenetic performances and cocksure delivery. Whereas his script for <em>Million Dollar Legs</em> has political and satirical points to make, here there is none of that subtlety. Everyone is well aware that
what they are doing is not high art, and that no one will be writing
books about their ‘method’, it’s just silly, low brow humour
with its finger on the pulse of Mr and Mrs Average movie goer of
1933.<br />
<br />
Of course, the plot of
<em>Diplomanaics</em> is utter nonsense and serves merely as an excuse to link
all manner of skits, songs and routines together under a loose story
about Wheeler and Woolsey going to an international peace conference.
The picture starts with the boys working as barbers on an Indian
reservation (with the gag being, in the first of many racial
stereotypes, that Native Americans don’t grow beards). Despite this
there is some very silly humour involved including a bearded man with
a bird’s nest and a golf ball in his facial growth, and a scalp
that tries to run away rather than being checked for dandruff. The
dialogue flies think and fast with such gems as “Are Indians
foreigners?”, “No, they’re only on our nickels. If they were
foreigners they’d be on our dollars” and the rather risqué
exchange of ”Willie here has scruples” “ No I haven’t, not
since I used witch-hazel”. The Indians here are in full racial
stereotype mode, dancing and whooping and seemingly only able to
communicate with the word “Oompa!”. Luckily their chief turns out
to have been educated at Oxford and though his ear is “not yet
attuned to your American-isms”, he knows enough to offer Wheeler
and Woolsey $2 million to represent his tribe at the Geneva peace
conference. What could possibly go wrong?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzQRE2tbQspaJDfmI2K_8N1npaqMbpIlVU5lxJYb4gflEPNlFAuDHI0mfFeireCyAPNuwBHi_YUTXAoFEv0CCOccatdZQRjXe1OAwePlYwxmkOjY8Xyfnt5DOORItEvtsbxZvwATu4mvQ/s1600/Diplomaniacs+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzQRE2tbQspaJDfmI2K_8N1npaqMbpIlVU5lxJYb4gflEPNlFAuDHI0mfFeireCyAPNuwBHi_YUTXAoFEv0CCOccatdZQRjXe1OAwePlYwxmkOjY8Xyfnt5DOORItEvtsbxZvwATu4mvQ/s400/Diplomaniacs+3.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Before they go, there
is a song and dance number which ends with Wheeler and Woolsey being
bounced on a carpet so high that they fly off into space. The boys
are also shown a large gorilla in a cage that used to be “the most
beautiful woman in Paris”. The gorilla has a dresser and a chaise
longue in its cage. Why does all of this happen? I have no idea; it’s
just another day at the office.<br />
<br />
Before long everyone is
aboard a liner heading to the conference where we meet the villain of
the piece Winkelreid, played with delicious gusto by Louis Calhern
(basically playing the insane brother of the character he plays in
<em>Duck Soup</em>). He hams up the role of diabolical villain in a way that
wouldn’t be out of place in the <em>Batman</em> TV show, complete with a
gang of inept henchmen. First among them is Hugh Herbert as a
Chinaman (obviously), with a distinctly Yiddish twang and Fifi
(played by a smouldering Phyllis Barry), a femme fatal who arrives as
requested on a conveyor belt wrapped in cellophane, ready for action
and “untouched by human hands” (though not for long).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwrlAg-ofQdijxRnq50sTAyiZ3mUyDE_i9lO0Yugwn54f06s7Rm9DGzMaPOh6KhlhZf8BmSTWJvuvQZ2E4CK2wIicx_U-0IPXWcbncrFsrbjUMevkte_pM9iHb8sYOhJoC6lDdojLtRE/s1600/Diplomaniacs+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMwrlAg-ofQdijxRnq50sTAyiZ3mUyDE_i9lO0Yugwn54f06s7Rm9DGzMaPOh6KhlhZf8BmSTWJvuvQZ2E4CK2wIicx_U-0IPXWcbncrFsrbjUMevkte_pM9iHb8sYOhJoC6lDdojLtRE/s400/Diplomaniacs+4.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The ocean liner gets
lost at sea and (obviously) ends up in Switzerland where the
villainous gang retreat into ‘The Dead Rat’, the World’s
Toughest Dive where they sit at a table marked ‘Reserved for
Conspiracies’ ("Gentlemen, let’s have a nice secret
conference”). Later, our heroes arrive in Geneva (in full alpine hiker
outfits no less, saying "I wonder if we're in the right city?") and discuss their plan, with the help of a passing dog that
delivers a message from the reservation. In a great parody of the
snooping villain, its revealed that the whole gang of spies are all sitting in a tree
directly above them in full view listening in. Once the counter plan
is hatched, Fifi suggests, “Let’s all neck”.
<br />
<br />
It’s about this time
that Hugh Herbert’s Chinaman decides to leave, telling Winkelreid,
“You are the ugliest villain I’ve ever worked for”, surely one
of the great put downs in film history. He rows back to China to find
that is dinner is cold because he’s five years late, and in his
absence he has gained a small army of children. Eventually we get to
the conference, and as expected we are treated to more national
stereotypes and the whole thing quickly descends into chaos. The
chairman of the conference, played by a perfectly cast Edgar Kennedy listens to the insanity then does his trademark slow burn until he snaps and opens
fire on the delegates with a machine gun. Everything explodes and the
finale number “No More War” is sung in blackface, because if you
are going to offend people, why not just go the whole way? <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP1MDlnmCTTwgD4UKHWGZZE2pUus-bj3Ao-4n9ud9fBDRWWOpzRJxyZjaqJFbPYWLDI6PG14a2MX-H5Ltn1U3ysaCVkUvc65j52yIRaUcKmie_OiI2n4WUe0VIQGuozkZqcWWU7y-1R8/s1600/Diplomaniacs+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP1MDlnmCTTwgD4UKHWGZZE2pUus-bj3Ao-4n9ud9fBDRWWOpzRJxyZjaqJFbPYWLDI6PG14a2MX-H5Ltn1U3ysaCVkUvc65j52yIRaUcKmie_OiI2n4WUe0VIQGuozkZqcWWU7y-1R8/s400/Diplomaniacs+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The above is just a
brief description of the madness contained within <em>Diplomaniacs</em> short
running time. Between the silly one liners, stupid sight gags, song
and dance numbers and visual and verbal surrealism it never outstays
its welcome and manages to elicit laughs and astonishment in equal
measures.<br />
<br />
A great example of the
humour that defines the movie happens before the conference when the
boys have a conversation with the femme fatale Fifi. Woolsey asks
her, “And who might you be my little cauliflower?” She tells him
“I am the most beautiful woman in Paris” to which his reply is
“Well make the most of it my broccoli, you may soon be a gorilla”.
(So that’s why there was a gorilla in a cage!). I also should
mention that this scene is played as all three run laps round some
furniture (“Get in there, you’re eight laps behind”, Fifi is
told before joining in). They finish the conversation and run out the
room, and we cut to them running in formation straight into ‘The
Dead Rat’. I know the scene doesn’t sound like much as described
but it’s difficult to convey she sheer lunacy of the approach taken
to incidental dialogue and action in the film.
<br />
<br />
In one sense the
absurdity of every situation delivers a disjointed narrative that
constantly reminds you that you are watching a movie, and indeed one
that no one is taking particularly seriously. This in itself often
takes the viewer out of the spell of the film, yet by doing this
Wheeler and Woolsey are attempting to tap into a level spontaneity
that can only rival the electric frisson of a live vaudeville show.
There is a certain tension in watching their performances, which must
have been palpable to contemporary audiences, in that one does not
know what to expect them to do or say next. Compared to the style of
film comedy that was to follow, the freedom that Wheeler and Woolsey
manage to convey is something rarely seen in movie comedy, certainly
after the early 30s. Many try to give that improvised, shambolic look
but very few do it as well as Wheeler and Woolsey. And I mean that as
the very highest of compliments!<br />
<br />
All in all,
<em>Diplomaniacs</em> showcases a team on top of the comedy mountain and
brimming with confidence. Sadly, it wouldn’t last too much longer
before the censors and audience tastes spoiled the party. However,
Wheeler and Woolsey’s work of this period deserves to be remembered
and celebrated far more than it has been up to now. They are a comedy team that
consistently present a sense of fun and enthusiasm whilst pushing
boundaries of comedy and indeed taste. Most importantly, their humour
is honest, often baffling yet always surprising and no one else
exemplifies pre code humour in all its unvarnished glory better. The
critical world will always love talking about the complexities of the
Marx Brothers and <em>Duck Soup</em>, or indeed W. C. Fields in <em>Million Dollar
Legs</em>, and that’s fine by me. Whilst the Marx Brothers and Fields
are timeless, Wheeler and Woolsey are freed from such concerns,
living only in the moment. With <em>Diplomaniacs</em> they produced an
outrageous and funny movie that perfectly captures an era and yet
creates a surprisingly modern comic style decades ahead of the curve.
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-46836319459493944752015-08-27T15:29:00.000-07:002015-08-27T15:29:59.743-07:00Three's a Crowd (1927) - The Unmaking of Harry Langdon, Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUZG13RT6bL-UvySFLdShukgFq8BC9IKtkOrKj6wjR1bfnqwUBQUWPQDmhztmKmG0YrDL6rSNNe4682QWMwh9UXDawIq7TazZOsS5vRMI30YosTQ6Fw1baxm4bgNv838Lf5gsPnniziY/s1600/Harry+Langdon+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUZG13RT6bL-UvySFLdShukgFq8BC9IKtkOrKj6wjR1bfnqwUBQUWPQDmhztmKmG0YrDL6rSNNe4682QWMwh9UXDawIq7TazZOsS5vRMI30YosTQ6Fw1baxm4bgNv838Lf5gsPnniziY/s400/Harry+Langdon+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Last time, we looked at
the circumstances surrounding the making of Harry Langdon’s <em>Three’s
a Crowd</em> and the various calamitous events that conspired to make it
the beginning of the end for his career as a top star. As a
result of the behind the scenes wrangling and the finished film's subsequent critical
mauling (much of it done after Langdon was dead and unable
to defend himself), the movie, and Harry Langdon’s reputation
suffered in silence for many decades. However, recently the critical tide has slowly
begun to turn, especially now that people can actually watch <em>Three’s a Crowd</em> once
again on DVD. And it is definitely worth watching.<br />
<br />
The surreal, dream like abstraction of <em>Three's a Crowd</em> begins right from the very start.
The title card names the principle characters simply as One, Two and
Three (as per the name of the film of course, but to a later audience
this sort of non determinative labelling is perhaps reminiscent of
the Samuel Beckett school of drama), and the opening tableaux is of
a dusky early morning street scene at 5 am, a liminal time between night
and day, dream and reality. A horse and cart travels slowly down the empty
street and the street lamps suddenly switch off, signalling the start
of the working day and the end of dream time. Langdon uses the
switching on and off of street lamps as a symbolic marker throughout
the film (he even has a street lamp inside his house) and poetically bookends the film with them.
<br />
<br />
We cut to Harry waking
up as the camera lingers on his somnambulant face for around fifteen
seconds while he tries valiantly to escape the haze of sleep. Langdon
has always been a confused, sleepy character but here he takes it to
such extremes that it establishes the off kilter tone of the whole film. After a panning shot of the objects in his room, we see Harry’s
drowsy moon face again for another agonisingly extended shot lasting another
fifteen seconds. Unable to rise from his slumbers, he goes back to sleep, only to reawaken as the camera
fixes on his face a third time, in this case for an astonishing thirty
seconds. What is extraordinary about these shots is the sense of
space and tension they provide. Fifteen seconds of close up on
a face (especially a face like Harry Langdon's) is a long time cinematically, thirty seconds creates a sense of
awkward unease but a combined minute is positively gripping. That Langdon uses this technique so early in the film is an incredibly daring
move, pushing the viewer to keep looking, and to be drawn
helplessly into Harry’s dream state. To some the effect is sheer
overkill or bad editing but to me, this is Harry Langdon pushing
his art into an unacceptable territory, putting his stall out by
forcing the gaze of the audience. It's also a technique that Langdon employed in his career on stage, thus giving compelling evidence that these extra
long takes exist as a conscious technique rather than (as critics
have previously bemoaned) a lack of skill. The effect is an audacious
and jaw dropping start to the movie. It also underlines the fact that dreams envelope the narrative, and indeed a case could be made that in fact Harry never truly snaps out his dream state, instead sleepwalking helplessly through the vagaries of his life.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-nyZnFzHwTtB3OpdUVGDLp1yX52eioou5srQgHIx0ay1GvDtLUEaHySo_qMlqx1D_Z6fF_0bb3N1b13_seF-KPSu_Qhl1xMr18UXOurBT6pzf5F1OZVLk68EsKtk-SwHOavzs9jYtro/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-nyZnFzHwTtB3OpdUVGDLp1yX52eioou5srQgHIx0ay1GvDtLUEaHySo_qMlqx1D_Z6fF_0bb3N1b13_seF-KPSu_Qhl1xMr18UXOurBT6pzf5F1OZVLk68EsKtk-SwHOavzs9jYtro/s400/Threes+a+Crowd+6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Harry, the simple
soul that he is, is an overworked furniture mover whose only dream in life is to
have a family. Langdon shows from the start that this is merely a
unrealistic fantasy for Harry, and that he is emotionally unable to either find or
cope with his heart’s dream. This is emphasized by the use of
objects in the movie. Harry can only connect to emotions through
inanimate objects, something that is a constant throughout Langdon’s
career. Yet like everything in <em>Three’s a Crowd</em>, this idea is mused upon and expanded in agonisingly explicit
detail. It begins when Harry finds a doll in a trash can and carries it to
work. He sees his boss playing with his son and mimics the motion
with the doll. It is sad because we know that not only is this the
only way he can connect with the reality of this situation but that
this is as near to it as he will ever get. To make matters worse, his
boss sees the doll and remarks that it is “a perfect resemblance”. Rather
than becoming a child surrogate, the doll has become Harry's doppelganger. This a fact the
audience knows all along but for it to mentioned directly to Harry is
just one of the many horrible realities that he must face throughout
the movie.<br />
<br />
The cinematography in
the film by Buster Keaton’s lensman Elgin Lessley is stunningly
composed, as the camera works in unison with Langdon’s eye for
detail to create beautifully detailed street scenes and sets. Despite
the upheaval behind the scenes with Frank Capra’s dismissal and
spiralling costs, the direction is good and the few missteps (a
couple of shots don’t match from one scene to the next) are
incidental to the overall message and atmosphere of the movie. One
would imagine that Langdon had little desire to direct himself (most
star comedians were the de facto director of all their films anyway
despite rarely taking a credit) but took on the job because it was
the easiest and cheapest option. Regardless of the backstage turmoil,
the movie looks great, with a particular strength being the small yet
evocative set. Harry lives in a tiny house at the top of an enormous
staircase, jutting out of the side of a building and complete with a
floor trap door to nowhere. The design is something out of an
Expressionist film, and is used primarily to represent Harry’s
position on the fringe of society. Interestingly, the expected comedy business of
the long staircase never really materialises, rather the endless
steps show Harry’s distance from reality and his isolation from his
desires. This restraint is another marker that what Langdon is trying
to do is not a typical over the top comedy spectacular. Pratfalls and
slapstick take a back seat to Langdon’s minimalist vision. The film is full of half realised gags that fade into abstraction, subdued by Harry's hypnagogic wanderings.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QyQ9bYLfX01_X_zW4as016RdNSrNWOH5XGIC2WmZtqHBbHAjcSdNMb2rVe-j4wNVN1K84WeM4dWpOXmPPu6A0Rkeh7TlZaCv3pC_IEhIWZJO_YTo_dxvn4QzaD8oRMq07n1k4ozM_j4/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6QyQ9bYLfX01_X_zW4as016RdNSrNWOH5XGIC2WmZtqHBbHAjcSdNMb2rVe-j4wNVN1K84WeM4dWpOXmPPu6A0Rkeh7TlZaCv3pC_IEhIWZJO_YTo_dxvn4QzaD8oRMq07n1k4ozM_j4/s400/Threes+a+Crowd+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
An encapsulation of
Langdon’s comic ideas occurs in a scene where, after being chased
by his boss, Harry seeks to hide from him by jumping out of the trap
door in his house, suspended by a carpet that is wedged in the
closed door. This is a familiar trope of silent comedy - the comic
suspended on high and perilously close to falling. Obviously, Harold
Lloyd made a career from dangling off high buildings in his many
‘thrill’ pictures, but here Harry Langdon makes an important
distinction in his approach. Whereas Lloyd ultimately triumphs over
the many dangers and pitfalls though a combination of skill, luck and
determination, here Harry Langdon is suspended in a trap of his own
making, and one from which both he and the audience knows he cannot
escape. He climbs up the carpet and opens the trap door, so releasing
more of the carpet and sending him back to where he started. This
routine goes on for an agonisingly long period of time (perhaps too
long if truth be known) and the carpet slowly ekes away. The
brilliance of Langdon’s approach is in the sheer nerve of
presenting an impossible situation as comedy. Harry can’t escape,
and we laugh at him trying to escape, knowing full well he can’t.
This essential cruelty is something no other comic would even
consider touching, as we laugh at his suffering. And to underline his
point, the carpet eventually runs out and he does fall. No skill or
luck presents itself, Harry struggles, we laugh at him, he fails to
escape and he falls. As it happens, his boss’ truck breaks his
fall, but in concept the routine is astonishingly dark in the lengths
Langdon will go to torture his on screen alter ego. And he’s not
done yet, by a longshot…<br />
<br />
What Harry desires more
than anything in the world is to be a family man, and as he looks out
into the cold one day he sees a young woman collapsed in the snow. He
takes her up to his house to recover and discovers that she is
pregnant. In typical Langdon fashion, he discovers this not by
recognising the tell tale physical signs that she is pregnant but by
noticing an object, a pair of tiny socks amongst her possessions. He
rounds up some doctors and local women and once the baby has been
delivered, Harry is left alone in his small home with mother and
child. Finally, out of nowhere, his dreams have come true. However, even at this moment of supposed triumph, we have already been conditioned to expect the unexpected.<br />
<br />
What follows is perhaps
Langdon’s greatest moment on screen. He stands in his small room, his
life finally fulfilled. In a medium shot placing him squarely in
the centre of the action, framed perfectly by his house, furniture
and mother and child, he stands still. And doesn’t move. At all. All in
all, I counted Harry standing still, blank faced and motionless for
around thirty seven seconds. Compared to his minimalist experiments at the
start of the film, this is an epic pause, and it’s a truly
beautiful, eerily poignant moment. Langdon creates a rare thing in cinema:
an open space, and on that space, and indeed Harry’s blank face,
the audience is free to impose their own thoughts and feelings. What
starts as a triumphant affirmation, given space to breathe swiftly
shifts to a worryingly unsettling moment of tension and doubt. For
all the talk of ‘the look’ of Buster Keaton (specifically the
famous blinking scene in <em>The General</em>) or the stare of Garbo at the
end of <em>Queen Christina</em>, Harry Langdon is the true master of the blank
gaze. His innocent face stares out into nowhere, out of the
screen, piercing the soul of the viewer, inhabiting their mind and
haunting their dreams. The moment shows that Langdon knew exactly what he was doing, and chose to push
the boundaries of what was possible in film comedy in a way that none
of his contemporaries could even conceive of. He creates space,
disquiet and tension and thus extraordinary, haunting beauty.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtn7H4pFqCotr2G73QFi-GijjZSlI3klGttsNEZRxpOMyMaqLhjyAhB6cW1ohNXan2e6ikV8ZGkzLHtgTVGo8mMReJlT0QCgYJKuE49-0jY8ffLhWGhj1n-wNVK4Nva_PfDz7kPASpfcc/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Kk-2w0ZyMHkYe2I7zheMwANk7wSDHmIUFk1eiwFu1SMANQwr13wI8Xa5VAuM5tHqGta-2TTLy3LPbtSJTK6GHrJ2EiX4t8MRsgkXToD1W4hYrZv0kACwTtmx6uYvT1-ipRcH8vW4yUU/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Kk-2w0ZyMHkYe2I7zheMwANk7wSDHmIUFk1eiwFu1SMANQwr13wI8Xa5VAuM5tHqGta-2TTLy3LPbtSJTK6GHrJ2EiX4t8MRsgkXToD1W4hYrZv0kACwTtmx6uYvT1-ipRcH8vW4yUU/s400/Threes+a+Crowd+9.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Now left with this
dream domestic scenario, Harry begins to worry that the girl’s
husband will find her and take her back. He sees a picture of him and
bashfully punches the photo with his back turned to the girl in an
embarrassed, joking manner. Again this shows that Harry can react
emotionally only to an object, or in this case representations of
people. Against the real husband, he knows he hasn’t a chance. This
theme is further elucidated upon in a dream Harry then has where the
husband appears menacingly at the window of his house during a storm
and Harry then fights him in a boxing match. The scene takes place in
a darkened arena, lit only on the boxing ring. This seems to have
been a budgetary constraint but it certainly adds to surreal,
dreamlike mood. The husband has a cape and top hat and is literally
twirling his moustache like the old time villains of melodrama while
Harry’s secret weapon is a massively outsized boxing glove.<br />
<br />
Again, the humour to be
found in the scene is far outweighed by the impending tragedy and daring way
Langdon uses narrative. Harry is defending the girl’s honour
against the mean villain, and is swiftly knocked out cold. He loses the fight
and the girl, <i>in his own dream</i>. <em>Three’s a Crowd’</em>s version
of the hero’s journey is extraordinary and bold, and its lesson
is that there is no journey, and no concept of happiness for Harry.
To make matters even worse, Harry wakes up to find that the husband
has tracked them down in real life and the girl runs to his arms, the
family back together again at the expense of Harry’s dreams. As the day closes, dream and reality start once again to collide, and Harry disappears into the spaces in between.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28asBCKGvO6JpF5uuAnWt1x7XXrydkQMi3L8XaVvTTANd9mpgsDHyY3I1uwQyl-oCDq1yOhO3105cDjpmQ05tB2rnbH7FD7r5Bx9ytQGbqiJaWl5iAHz1_bF8rSUt-WDGytwQfIhYEjs/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg28asBCKGvO6JpF5uuAnWt1x7XXrydkQMi3L8XaVvTTANd9mpgsDHyY3I1uwQyl-oCDq1yOhO3105cDjpmQ05tB2rnbH7FD7r5Bx9ytQGbqiJaWl5iAHz1_bF8rSUt-WDGytwQfIhYEjs/s400/Threes+a+Crowd+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
As ever, Harry can go
nothing to stop this happening as he stands and watches while his dream
walks out the door with her true love. He literally stands by
helpless and unmoving as she leaves, just as he did when she arrived. In a crushingly sad scene, Harry
stands framed in the doorway of his little house, watching the happy
couple disappear into the snow outside. Then we see the doll from
earlier, caught in a washing line and tattered by the weather,
crumpled and cast away. As predicted, the doll was not a child substitute but Harry himself. He takes a lamp and wanders out into the
street. As he stands there entirely alone he blows out the lamp, and
all the streetlamps also go out. It’s a beautiful little moment of
magic in an otherwise profoundly bleak scene. The movie finishes with
a gag, otherwise probably everyone in the cinema would have gone home
and put their heads in their gas ovens, as Harry takes revenge on a
bogus fortune teller from earlier in the movie. It’s a token gesture, a rare moment
of comic relief in a thoroughly heart breaking movie.<br />
<br />
What makes <em>Three’s a
Crowd</em> so brilliant is the way that Harry Langdon seems to have almost
committed career suicide in order to push his comic art further. The
movie’s bad reputation surely rests on the fact that as a comedy
it’s not very funny, which it isn’t. There is no comparison
whatsoever to the earlier features with Capra in terms of laughs, but
to do so is failing to see what Langdon is attempting to do. This is a
mature work of a growing artist working on a purely conceptual level
of comedy. In terms of career longevity Langdon definitely would have
been better making another <em>Long Pants</em> or <em>The Strong Man</em>, but he
obviously felt that to do so was a backward step. Whereas Chaplin, Keaton
and Lloyd continued to make more polished and more sophisticated
films with each successive work, they essentially use their
characters to explore the same variety of themes in varying detail.
When Harold Lloyd made <em>The Kid Brother</em>, he achieved a beautiful
synthesis of the rural and the ideal, of courage, humour and beauty,
perhaps the summit of his achievements. However, the Harold Lloyd
character in the movie is no different from the one that he always
played, the big difference being the scope of the movie, the fluidity of
its image and perfect balance of comedy and drama.<br />
<br />
When Frank Capra
thought he understood everything about Harry Langdon’s comic
character, he was wrong. Only Langdon knew what the character meant,
and free of Capra’s hypothesizing he took the character in the
direction it was meant to go in. Unfortunately that was the most
uncommercial direction possible for an audience unused to seeing its
favourite comedians as anything other than simple clowns. The essential difference
is that Capra’s conception of Langdon involved the necessity of God
being on his side. Langdon, being the ultimate reactive comedian
historically manages to avoid tragedy by doing nothing. If he escapes
from a building falling on him, it’s never anything he himself
does, it’s just pure luck or Providence. Where the real difference
in Capra and Langdon’s view of the character manifests itself
is in this divine protection – in Langdon’s worldview, God is not
protecting Harry, in fact nothing can protect him and the redemptive
happy ending doesn’t exist. Harry is entirely lost, eternally buffered by the seas of Fate.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv9TEXoSfAalHP9G-LDSRQRraXmn0fmYsehCZC-HUS4je39l-wO9_Zh80Xb4rmy0i6DUFqoJ_40u8_OEUd84Tl00PDu93NkV1KjQ0_hO-qFBhC9tyMvlXw18y7Pm_g5ChSvI2Y3Rbz1Bo/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv9TEXoSfAalHP9G-LDSRQRraXmn0fmYsehCZC-HUS4je39l-wO9_Zh80Xb4rmy0i6DUFqoJ_40u8_OEUd84Tl00PDu93NkV1KjQ0_hO-qFBhC9tyMvlXw18y7Pm_g5ChSvI2Y3Rbz1Bo/s400/Threes+a+Crowd+10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Quite how Langdon hoped
to take this idea further in subsequent films is difficult to say, as
his next two features were far more conventional (though the final
one <em>Heart Trouble</em> remains sadly lost). Perhaps <em>Three’s a Crowd</em> was
a one off, a statement that needed to be made and created in response to the situation he found himself in. Even Langdon must have
been stung by the movie’s poor reception into making his next film
more commercial. As it stands, <em>Three’s a Crowd</em> is either the work
of a genius or an amazing series of unconscious coincidences by an
unknowing amateur, There is so much depth and thought put into the
movie, that the latter is simply inconceivable. Of course, in 1927
movies were rarely watched repeatedly or studied for meaning, least
of all comedies. An acquired taste at the best of times, Harry
Langdon at his most daringly opaque was going to be a difficult
proposition for a lot of audiences. As critic David Kalat says in his
excellent DVD commentary to the movie, <em>Three's a Crowd</em> “...is horrifying, it is profoundly sad, deeply tragic, eerily disturbing and unrelenting”. And that I feel
sums up this amazing, confrontational, divisive movie perfectly. <br />
<br />
On screen and off,
Harry Langdon exists at an awkward tangent to the real world, never
quite posing the easy questions or giving the correct answers to be lauded universally by critics
and moviegoers. Instead he opts to remain forever confounding, elusive and largely unloved.
Yet for those who wish to listen, <em>Three's a Crowd</em> remains his ultimate statement, a movie that is both profound and profane. And though the critics and naysayers continue to doubt him, somewhere he watches and stands unmoved, and just stares his stare of eternity.
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-33097798802274966122015-07-08T17:24:00.000-07:002015-08-26T13:51:13.820-07:00Three's a Crowd (1927) - The Unmaking of Harry Langdon, Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6sp0d-yuzezsNFZTQGlz0evYP_OEIRh8SwPdqcuyyUTSlcN2ZMiO_X8rVdwUN2OI1aMN-ViyOey89ufooQ_2ZGJatmkDIPD26KacGbFCEwQ2B-wcQ92C1AbXkpQezFFqWeU4byMKvsms/s1600/Harry+Langdon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6sp0d-yuzezsNFZTQGlz0evYP_OEIRh8SwPdqcuyyUTSlcN2ZMiO_X8rVdwUN2OI1aMN-ViyOey89ufooQ_2ZGJatmkDIPD26KacGbFCEwQ2B-wcQ92C1AbXkpQezFFqWeU4byMKvsms/s400/Harry+Langdon.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
It’s not often that
watching a film for the first time leaves me with a range of
conflicting thoughts and emotions but <i>Three’s a Crowd</i> did
exactly that. The thoughts and emotions in question stretched from
shock and confusion to awe and admiration regarding what <i>exactly</i>
I had just seen. And what exactly did I see? Well I’m still not
entirely sure, but after mulling it over I thought that I’d make an
attempt to share my thoughts on Harry Langdon’s much maligned
directorial debut.
<br />
<br />
Rather than subject the
world to another extra long movie review, I’ve opted to split this
into a couple of shorter, more manageable parts, and I’ll start off
here by looking at the background of the film and the story of its
making, and its role in the subsequent unmaking of Harry Langdon.
<i>Three’s a Crowd</i>, long unavailable for general viewing was
released by Kino on DVD (as a double feature with Langdon’s follow
up <i>The Chaser</i>) in 2008 and I’d heartily recommend picking it
up. Simply put, regardless of critical opinion, <i>Three’s a Crowd</i>
is unlike anything else Langdon or indeed any of his contemporaries
would ever attempt.<br />
<br />
To say that <i>Three’s
a Crowd</i> is a polarising movie is a bit of an understatement. The
film, its production and subsequent fallout has inspired fierce
debate for decades. For the most part, the general critical consensus
was that Harry Langdon’s first directorial effort is an artistic
disaster, an ego driven misstep of such magnitude that it cost the
comedian his career. Split from his collaborator Frank Capra, Harry
Langdon was out of his depth and proved once and for all that he
needed others to create the comedy for him. As a result of this tide
of opinion, there is so much baggage attached to any viewing of the
movie that it is often hard to see it untangled from its difficult
genesis and the decades of critical mauling.
<br />
<br />
So I decided to finally
watch this most unloved of movies and see for myself. After not
laughing much in the opening ten minutes, I feared the worst and
began to feel a dreadful sinking feeling. Were the critics right all
along? Did Harry really just not understand his own character?
Slightly worried, I kept watching but with my expectations lowered
and now hoping for at best an amiably average little effort.<br />
<br />
It took a short while
for the movie’s dreamlike atmosphere to take hold, but once its fog
of discord had seeped into my mind I was completely under its
mesmeric influence. I went back and watched again from the beginning
but now with my eyes open and a new found understanding. Far from the
unfunny sentimental nonsense I was told to expect, <i>Three’s a
Crowd</i> is an astonishing work of singular genius, and one of the
finest and most misrepresented movies of the silent era. Once you get
over certain expectations and start to realise what Langdon is trying
to achieve, there are few superlatives that can do the film justice.
It is nothing less than a masterpiece. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVdWtHDzMVz2krBNcxn1dbUV0czTyv0sU8uGXOKBSHr0xafamrueCXwGaY9qKt-TgXBl6E-tGzruNDsxEZ4401Nj6MRnyRAIrAjlcGkpcR-KwwXCw6_q0HW2J0K1dCxS2IhC_I-OZunU/s1600/Threes+a+Crowd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVdWtHDzMVz2krBNcxn1dbUV0czTyv0sU8uGXOKBSHr0xafamrueCXwGaY9qKt-TgXBl6E-tGzruNDsxEZ4401Nj6MRnyRAIrAjlcGkpcR-KwwXCw6_q0HW2J0K1dCxS2IhC_I-OZunU/s400/Threes+a+Crowd.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
<br />
However, before we get
to that, let’s review the events that led up to the making of the
film and the received wisdom that gives it such a bad reputation. In
brief, Harry Langdon started late in movies (he was almost 40) but
within two years of his screen debut in 1924 had found a winning
formula working for Mack Sennett in creative union with director
Harry Edwards, writer Arthur Ripley and gag man Frank Capra. At the
height of his fame and influence he signed a six picture deal with
First National and took the team with him, promoting Capra to
director. The first three movies of the new deal (<i>Tramp, Tramp
Tramp</i>, <i>The Strong Man </i>and <i>Long Pants</i>) were very
successful and represented the commercial peak of Langdon’s career
(and perhaps his most consistently funny work). Popular with critics
and moviegoers alike, Langdon was being hailed as a real threat to
Chaplin’s crown. Everything was fine for a while but during the
production of <i>Long Pants</i>, the cracks in the team began to
show.<br />
<br />
It seems that Capra and
Edwards disagreed over the pacing of <i>Long Pants</i>, and Langdon
sided with Edwards. Differing in comic philosophies with Capra, the
rift culminated in Langdon firing Capra, leading to a very bitter
public dispute that cast Harry in a poor light to the public and
press. He decided to go it alone and directed the three remaining
pictures of the contract himself (though his collaboration with
Arthur Ripley continued). These three (<i>Three’s a Crowd</i>, <i>The
Chaser</i> and <i>Heart Trouble</i>) were box office flops and First
National did not renew the contract. With the coming of sound Langdon
was out of work and declared bankruptcy. He had gone from being a top
box office star in a major studio to working on poverty row in the
space of a year and his reputation never fully recovered.<br />
<br />
That’s the basic story as it is told in most
accounts of film history, and that narrative exists due to a number
of reasons. Firstly, upon being fired Capra, in order to salvage a
burgeoning directorial career apparently vented his frustrations to
the media, thus giving Harry Langdon the air of a man who was
difficult to work with and egotistical. After Harry’s subsequent
movies flopped, his prophecies appeared to hold weight despite the
truth being slightly more complex. However, what really tarred
Langdon with the brush of failure was a number of statements made by
Frank Capra in the intervening years, after Langdon’s death in 1944<br />
<br />
Firstly there was film critic James Agee's
hugely influential feature in Life Magazine in 1949, entitled ‘Comedy’s Greatest Era’. It is now
regarded as a seminal article and responsible for a great upsurge in
interest in silent comedy at a time when many of its old stars had
been all but forgotten. Frank Capra was a key interviewee, and when
asked about Langdon noted that, “Langdon was almost as childlike as
the character he played” and that when things went wrong in his
career he “never did really understand what hit him”. This
conceit that Landon was but a clueless puppet in the hands of the
long suffering and hard working creative staff tasked with the
unenviable job of coming up with something for him to do remains to
this day. The fact that in a separate interview, Mack Sennett agreed
with the notion entrenched it in critical history.
<br />
<br />
However, just in case
anyone missed this character assassination, Frank Capra wrote his
autobiography in 1971 and went into more detail regarding his views on Langdon’s
artistic demise. His autobiography goes to great lengths to show how
he was right and Langdon was wrong, and that Harry Langdon and his
ego brought all his troubles on himself. The main tenant of his
argument is that Langdon never understood his own character, or indeed
his own comedy and could only be successful if guided by the safe
hands of someone who did understand, like Frank Capra. According to Capra, at a screening of
rushes at the Sennett studio, Arthur Ripley thought Langdon’s
performance was so bad that he was beyond help and that “only
God can help an elf like Langdon”. Capra claims that this became
the basis for the character of Langdon’s successful years, an
innocent fool out of step with everyday life, for whom his only ally
is God. And there you have it - the hopeless vaudeville comedian was
successfully moulded into a box office star by following the strict
instructions of Capra and Ripley, and when he decided he didn’t
need them, his career instantly derailed.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERccqdLfAhRWfcF1gWqrUc-u_zv7o7EkQGsaUSo_whoqB8yqPbiaIcFEdRyCkudnfGGLLdoMjkYXhyphenhyphenKzESwSd50Q7xzPlJlpjh5leFbNj48I2wG5cSVHxX067KLkIgVHEusQHFNwu9F4/s1600/threes+a+crowd+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiERccqdLfAhRWfcF1gWqrUc-u_zv7o7EkQGsaUSo_whoqB8yqPbiaIcFEdRyCkudnfGGLLdoMjkYXhyphenhyphenKzESwSd50Q7xzPlJlpjh5leFbNj48I2wG5cSVHxX067KLkIgVHEusQHFNwu9F4/s400/threes+a+crowd+2.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />
This theory has been
successfully demolished by critics and historians such as Walter Kerr, Joyce Rheuban and David Kalat but
still persists (indeed, Langdon’s imdb bio repeats the old story).
Capra’s account of things completely ignores the fact that Langdon
had been a hugely successful vaudeville star for years who brought a
clearly established character with him when he broke into movies in
1924. Langdon had already been making shorts for 2 years before Capra
even joined Sennett, thus making the story about viewing early
Langdon rushes impossible to have happened – out of 21 Langdon
movies at Sennett, Ripley received his first credit on the 13<sup>th</sup>
and Capra on the 15<sup>th</sup>. Virtually every part of the Langdon
character was in place by the time they arrived, but what Capra did
eventually bring to Harry Langdon’s work was a sure directorial
touch, some needed focus and a clear sense of what was commercially
popular.<br />
<br />
Not to say that the new
narrative should be all about bashing Frank Capra and his legacy.
Capra’s success and career speaks for itself, and his role in
Langdon’s downfall has really no bearing on his own movies and
talent. What has to be brought to task is when his statements don’t
match the facts, and when these facts can be readily evidenced on the
screen. It’s understandable that Capra was angry and bitter at
being fired by Langdon and as they say, history is written by the
victors. However, it comes of as especially churlish to kick a man
when he is down, and from his position at the summit of Hollywood’s
hierarchy, that is exactly what Capra did to Harry Langdon. Also,
what rubs people the wrong way is the fact that Capra essentially
sets himself up as the man pulling Langdon’s strings, that much
like Langdon’s screen persona, the real Harry Langdon was a hapless
bystander as Capra orchestrated his success. Leo McCarey attempted the same thing in his later years too, insisting that Stan Laurel knew nothing about comedy and claiming all the credit for the creation of Laurel and Hardy's best work, regardless of the facts. Sadly, while people take McCarey's words with a pinch of salt, Capra's are often still treated as gospel.<br />
<br />
What <i>Three’s a
Crowd</i> proved is that without Capra, Langdon felt he was free to
explore his comedy without the same commercial consideration. Ever
the populist, this was something that Capra could not conceive of,
and therefore in his head it was wrong. Even Capra’s central idea
of ‘God is his only ally’ was rejected by Langdon, as for him his
comic persona is so far removed from reality, and so wretched that even God openly
abandons him. It’s an idea of startling daring and resulted in
Harry Langdon creating a film of immense beauty, a dreamlike parable
of despair that is so far removed from what his silent comedy
contemporaries were delivering that it shocked audiences into
confusion.<br />
<br />
So there I was, watching my DVD of
<em>Three’s a Crowd</em> and struck by the notion that firstly,
the film wasn’t really that funny, and that secondly Langdon the
director seemed to have no concept of editing (several scenes just
lasted far too long). After ten minutes I realised that I was falling
into the trap of all the audiences that watched it in 1927 and beyond
in that my expectations did not match the delivered product. As I
mentioned previously, I stopped the DVD and thought for a moment
about what I’d just seen (something that I appreciate cinema audiences would never have the chance to do). <i>Three’s a Crowd</i> is not a comedy
in the traditional sense, it’s a dark comic experiment that serves
as manifesto for Langdon’s daringly abstract, absurdist view. I
started again, with a glimmering of knowledge that this was something
a very different and a bit special.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Next time, we shall
look at the film itself and marvel at its many wonders…</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-16213190576095511132015-05-29T18:17:00.003-07:002015-05-29T18:17:51.376-07:00Cancel My Reservation (1972) - The End of the Road for Bob Hope's Movie Career<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAjPJhPNqjxa8bHqag04HvLuUhfFYQKFF4lfzku34rli_s_Emz-wONigH-Lbe8MhHPmkP86Bkxz-DevPCvitKZ-YJyOGJ3qsUq1zhaaveCp_Mtl34hNWYc8FXUPH02akxpXS6tBQtJ92Y/s1600/Cancel+My+Reservation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAjPJhPNqjxa8bHqag04HvLuUhfFYQKFF4lfzku34rli_s_Emz-wONigH-Lbe8MhHPmkP86Bkxz-DevPCvitKZ-YJyOGJ3qsUq1zhaaveCp_Mtl34hNWYc8FXUPH02akxpXS6tBQtJ92Y/s1600/Cancel+My+Reservation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAjPJhPNqjxa8bHqag04HvLuUhfFYQKFF4lfzku34rli_s_Emz-wONigH-Lbe8MhHPmkP86Bkxz-DevPCvitKZ-YJyOGJ3qsUq1zhaaveCp_Mtl34hNWYc8FXUPH02akxpXS6tBQtJ92Y/s400/Cancel+My+Reservation.jpg" width="262" /></a><br />
The last time I wrote about Bob Hope, it was after watching his modest cinematic debut in the 1934 short
<em>Going Spanish</em>. At that time, though a stage veteran the fledgling
screen comedian was understandably not quite the character we grew to
know and love. As his birthday has rolled around again, perhaps this time it is only fitting we now look at Bob’s
movie swan song 1972’s <em>Cancel My
Reservation</em>, some 38 years later. Bob Hope had a career as a lead screen comedian in five
different decades (and as a top TV comedian for a further two), was a box office attraction for around 20 years and made dozens of very good and very funny movies, but by any means of looking at it, <em>Cancel My
Reservation</em> is not one of them. However, he was still a big star, was never out of the public view and for the most part remained a much beloved comedian, but by 1972 Hope looked tired, bored and out of touch. So what went wrong?<br />
<br />
When he made <em>Cancel My
Reservation</em>, I’m sure Hope had no idea that it would end up being
his last cinematic effort despite the project being a troubled one.
The script actually started life as a serious adaption of Louis L’Amour’s
western novel 'The Broken Gun', which Bob Hope had taken the option on.
Perhaps the rights were about to expire but rather than wait
for the right adaption, the gritty western plot was shoehorned into a
comic murder mystery. Part of this change seems to be an issue with funding,
as Hope had to get NBC to throw in some of the costs (to add to his own financing) when United
Artists passed on the project, and their insistence on the picture
being a comedy complete with star cameos effectively closed the door on any
serious dramatic pretentions Hope may have had. Rather than a change of direction for him, it ended up being just another day at the office.
<br />
<br />
The film itself is
typical of many comedies of the era: fast paced, bright
coloured, plenty of good looking girls, stereotypical stock
characters, a lazy script and a half hearted attempted
at either sending up or jumping on the counterculture or hippy
bandwagon. For comedies of the late 60s and early 70s, it’s as if
the twin spectres of <em>It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World</em> and <em>Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In</em> are omnipresent, and the movies can’t resist
the urge to reference such things as flower power, or 'women’s lib' and the watchword is decidedly 'wacky', all set to a groovy sounding pop soundtrack. The movies attempt this without really understanding what it is they are trying to do or who
exactly their audience should be. <em>Cancel My Reservation</em> doesn’t sin nearly as
much as say, <em>Skidoo</em>, but it does have the 'desperate to be hip vibe'
of a Don Knotts or later Jerry Lewis movie, with all the zany hi-jinks one would expect. At least Hope’s
earlier efforts had the saving grace of Phyllis Diller to liven up proceedings and keep him on his toes, regardless of poor scripts.<br />
<br />
In the movie, Bob
Hope stars as a talk show host who shares his show with his more popular
wife, played by Eve Marie Saint. The strain on their relationship causes him to go for a rest in
the Arizona desert without her where he gets mixed up in a murder and a plot to
take land from the Native Americans. There is nothing wrong with
the plot itself but the script is so uninspiring and tired, and despite
some good performances the words just have no weight and even fewer
laughs. Luckily there is a decent cast with Eva Marie Saint as Hope’s
wife being the definite highlight. She has a great chemistry with Bob, and brings some real charm and stability to the movie as she attempts to patch up her relationship and solve the mystery. Familiar faces like Ralph Bellamy, Keenan
Wynn and Forrest Tucker also keep the movie rolling along but don’t
really add anything. Even a young Anne Archer doesn’t save it,
sadly providing only window dressing. However, there is a faint glimmer of
the old Hope in a scene where Bob is told he could face hanging if
convicted of murder. He then dreams about his lynching as an angry mob lead him to the gallows and put a noose round his neck. As he does is usual hammy pleading for help then we see none other than Bing Crosby laughing in the crowd saying "Help you? Who do you think bought the rope?". Other faces in the crowd reveal themselves to be Johnny Carson, Flip Wilson and bizarrely, John Wayne (who says "I'd like to help you but it's not my picture!"). The dream sequence ends and we are back to reality (and NBC are kept happy), but it was a nice little reminder of times past and for long time fans the last chapter in the Hope and Crosby screen friendship. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq1IvJuuCZ3KYYyIVv1ABB6ANX3vJ5DXePCghuv0d59KX5VB1i8eO_U-fQD-9_LopZuIcRle1r7CqZ28bJsbpMhy3hEKxl-DdE7yUa94FevVv_ulGzIOmwaKsJSS-6CRw-YH_GWdjaQZk/s1600/Cancel+My+Reservation+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq1IvJuuCZ3KYYyIVv1ABB6ANX3vJ5DXePCghuv0d59KX5VB1i8eO_U-fQD-9_LopZuIcRle1r7CqZ28bJsbpMhy3hEKxl-DdE7yUa94FevVv_ulGzIOmwaKsJSS-6CRw-YH_GWdjaQZk/s320/Cancel+My+Reservation+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In the end, <em>Cancel My
Reservation</em> is a pretty bad film, but thankfully not his worst. However, the sad fact remains that despite
obviously being committed to maintaining a film career in the 60s and
70s, Hope’s efforts were lacklustre. The problem was due to a number
of issues, both off screen and on.
<br />
Firstly and most
importantly, television was Hope’s main source of income and
visibility and that’s what took up most of his time from the mid
50s onwards, which is when the quality of his movies start to
decline. Part of this decline can be attributed to the end of his long
term working relationship with Paramount, who obviously knew how to
use him effectively, though the problem is equally the end of the studio system and the stability it brought. I’d say the last truly great Hope comedy is
1954’s <em>Casanova’s Big Night</em>, and he followed that with two
mainly dramatic roles in <em>Seven Little Foys</em> and <em>Beau James </em>which pushed him out of his comfort zone to interesting effect. After that
flurry of interesting mid 50s projects, things were never quite the same again.<br />
<br />
With his lifetime NBC
television contract, Hope had to come up with material for regular
specials, and with the pressure to deliver
laughs and ratings, this understandably took up most of his time and energy, making movies his
secondary focus. Another problem with the later movies is that, ever
willing to make a buck, Bob started to have a financial stake in his
vehicles rather than just be a contract player. Rather than improving the quality of the movies, this seemed to only impede the creative process. Various accounts
relate the struggles directors, writers, actor and producers had with
Hope’s constant script changes and complaining, with on set
problems being a regular feature of the later films when not paired with a
director who could deal with his working habits. Indeed, director Paul Bogart apparently checked himself into a hospital to recover from the stress of working with Hope on <em>Cancel My Reservation</em> and vowed never to work with him again. This sort of
atmosphere doesn’t really sound particularly conducive to making
comedy, and it shows in the finished product.<br />
<br />
Another problem, which
is always the one that puts me off his later movies, is the change in
Hope’s screen persona. The classic Bob Hope character of the
cowardly Lothario, the pompous, fast talking yet well meaning fool worked
so perfectly for decades that the sudden change in the late 50s to
eliminate or tone down most of these characteristics removed the
heart from his movies. The character was so good that Woody Allen
based a performing career on him (Saying recently, “Bob Hope? I’m
practically a plagiarist”). Something happened along the way
though, and the cowardly likable goof version of Hope was replaced
with a more realistic version of the television Bob Hope, a middle
aged man who did real things and spat out a never ending line of
tired quips as he went along. This Hope, rather than being a comic everyman (of
sorts) became a family man, a hen pecked husband, or a business man who just said funny things rather actually <em>being</em> funny.
I realise that Hope felt that he was getting
older and probably couldn’t get away with his traditional character, though I’d argue that age is no barrier to the actions of a
clown. However, I have a suspicion (as much as I hate to acknowledge
it) that ego had a part in the decision as he just doesn't seem too keen to send himself up as he got older. If you see Hope on chat
shows from the 60s onwards, he’s a lot more serious and guarded than he was in the
40s (though he’s still pretty cagey in the early interviews I’ve
heard) and at times fairly grumpy. It all comes from being a very
rich man with a lot of responsibility and a lot of power. He just
doesn’t seem to try as hard as he used to because there is nothing
left to prove. In a sense he stopped being Bob Hope the comedian and became Bob
Hope the media personality.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmu_Z78RQjYTUXoljKsCY_9MtJjbi37sUH4rcbSaZJNeBZ6zOSKtDRdrUrPQ8v6UWclZ_jChBibwjSca49M9HQYryzQOyoQ6Qcd4fq9Cea9lbgzlBu5rWYNNynxYZHDf64qhBdd8C5Dk/s1600/Cancel+My+Reservation+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmu_Z78RQjYTUXoljKsCY_9MtJjbi37sUH4rcbSaZJNeBZ6zOSKtDRdrUrPQ8v6UWclZ_jChBibwjSca49M9HQYryzQOyoQ6Qcd4fq9Cea9lbgzlBu5rWYNNynxYZHDf64qhBdd8C5Dk/s320/Cancel+My+Reservation+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
It’s no wonder that
the people who constantly knock Hope always do so with reference to
his persona as seen on television at the height of the counter
culture years in the 60s and 70s. He is seen as a kind of comic
representation of the Nixon administration: patrician, middle aged and out
of touch. Personally, I don’t think Hope really changed too much in himself
(he seems to have always been a nervous, insecure performer even to
the end), but his position changed. Like anyone with that amount of
fame and money, it’s difficult not to live in a bubble of sorts and
to be protected from what is glaringly obvious to the outside world.
The fact that Hope during this period continued entertaining the
troops and doing his charity work speaks volumes about the measure of
the real man, but his public persona became rather frosty and distant
and it rubbed off on screen in his movies. The likability factor that made audiences laugh but still sympathise with him had faded
somewhat.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Bob Hope seemed
comfortable making his TV shows and becoming a familiar if
unspectacular fixture on the small screen. From what I’ve seen of
his specials, the quality depends very much on the guest star, but
most of his material is often painfully thin. Unlike Jack Benny, Hope
seemed not to pride himself on the quality of his writers, but on the
topicality of his one liners. This worked for what it was, but in the
big picture he failed at creating the television legacy that Benny
(or even George Burns) managed where each appearance built on the
next to create a lasting and well loved narrative.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, despite
the critical, financial and artistic disappointment of <em>Cancel My
Reservation</em>, Hope persevered with the idea of making movies. He spent
the rest of his active career looking for the right vehicle but never
got the script that suited him. It seems he almost got there with the
legendary but unmade <em>Road to the Fountain of Youth</em> which would have
reunited him with Bing Crosby for one last hurrah but was sadly
interrupted by Bing’s death. Whether that would have made it to
the screen and whether it would have actually been watchable or his equivalent of Mae
West’s <em>Sextet</em> we will never know. He also tried and failed to make
a movie about the life of Walter Winchell, a project he sat on for so
long that he finally became too old to star in it. Apparently he was
interested in Neil Simon’s <em>The Sunshine Boys</em> as another vehicle for
him and Bing, but Simon turned him down thinking quite
rightly that their personalities would swamp the material (not to
mention the fact it was about two old Jewish comedians).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCRINuSWBCB_mGc_hAcUNBfA5lY9Vi0mvwq5GRJAjuxMyC6daI6_GC6hVCdO6uo9iCbfSM6v6xP1jgA09vingnr64gUGEZgbb7wcwqPwEJSr5vQqB_eFAExhwCIidtVPjVzKg6vJIi95U/s1600/Cancel+My+Reservation+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCRINuSWBCB_mGc_hAcUNBfA5lY9Vi0mvwq5GRJAjuxMyC6daI6_GC6hVCdO6uo9iCbfSM6v6xP1jgA09vingnr64gUGEZgbb7wcwqPwEJSr5vQqB_eFAExhwCIidtVPjVzKg6vJIi95U/s320/Cancel+My+Reservation+4.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />
No doubt there were
many other attempts to find a film comeback but it never
materialised. I remember even in the early 90s reading an interview
with him where he said he still hoped to have one last film role
before retiring completely. It’s a shame it never happened, as with
the right writer (preferably not one of his staff) the still active
and fairly sharp Hope of that era could have done something truly
memorable, just as George Burns had managed before him. As it was we had to suffice with a few cameos and the TV
movie <em>A Masterpiece of Murder</em>, which on paper sounds great but is just
as unmemorable as <em>Cancel My Reservation</em>.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the end it doesn’t
really matter how Bob Hope’s film career wound up. People will love
or loathe Hope largely depending on what version they saw of him
while growing up. I’m lucky that I grew up knowing little of the
real man in the 80s and 90s while watching his classic movies on
television with no preconceived notions. Now having seen all the stages of his career I still think he’s great and I find something to
enjoy in every decade and medium. Woody Allen said recently that he's always having to defend his love of Bob Hope to people (though the way it's going a future generation may have to spend more of their time defending their love of Woody Allen to people but that's another thing altogether...). It's sad that people forget the good times and concentrate of the out of touch elder statesman of comedy that Hope was in the 60s, 70s and beyond. Unlike Jack Benny he never managed to become universally loved by each successive generation, or adapt to new challenges like George Burns but I'd still like to think there are plenty of people out there that realise how good he was and how important a comedian he was. On its own, <em>Cancel My Reservation</em> isn't that great a film, but as part of a 38 year cinematic legacy it's not too bad, a small piece in a much bigger and funnier picture. Despite the ups and downs of his standing with the public and the quality of his films, Bob Hope brought a lot of laughs to this world and did a lot of good, and that's something I hope is never forgotten.</div>
</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-85927851555497553692015-05-16T09:47:00.000-07:002015-05-16T09:48:24.020-07:00Snapshot # 4 - He Was Her Man (1934)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZnbtVPppCYvnltvz0y2z4dRUkX1yIsDTrhHfElvqQ6seFwGvgGY8Ic-OM8wMpOF6RwwdLuU3f0uaEtk4Cpvc3l7EGCMnNuf5DsJJbP3-Ri6HxQDK72PmBpJ3c1v-LxQjDJD-wke9YAY/s1600/He+Was+Her+Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZnbtVPppCYvnltvz0y2z4dRUkX1yIsDTrhHfElvqQ6seFwGvgGY8Ic-OM8wMpOF6RwwdLuU3f0uaEtk4Cpvc3l7EGCMnNuf5DsJJbP3-Ri6HxQDK72PmBpJ3c1v-LxQjDJD-wke9YAY/s400/He+Was+Her+Man.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>What is it about? :
</b>Safecracking ex-con Flicker Hayes double crosses the gang and
goes on the run to sleepy fishing village Santa Avila. With him is
Rose Lawrence, a down on her luck girl who wants to put her past
behind her and marry simple fisherman Nick and settle down. As the
mobsters approach, Rose finds herself attracted to Flicker and having
second thoughts about the wedding.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet :
</b>James Cagney, Joan Blondell and Victor Jory, with Frank Craven,
Sarah Padden, Harold Huber, Russell Hopton and John Qualen</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera :</b>
Directed by Lloyd Bacon, Screenplay by Tom Buckingham and Niven
Busch, Cinematography by George Barnes, Art direction by Anton Grot.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts :</b>
<em>He Was Her Man</em> is one of the last gasps of the pre-code era, sneaking
in mere months before the Hays Code came into effect. As a result we
see a lot of the usual tropes of what we know as pre-code cinema,
though played with perhaps slightly less conviction and perhaps a
hint of uneasiness. James Cagney, as Flicker Hayes is a largely
unlikable character who wrestles with his own smugness for most of
the movie as to whether he should let Joan Blondell’s Rose into his
life or just use her like he does everyone else. It all plays out with a
muted sense of doom and downbeat realism that would all but vanish
within the next year. As ever, the characters are not so clean cut,
with everyone having some sort of shame or compromise in their
closet. Flicker is a criminal so low that he double crosses his
fellow gangsters for his own amusement then runs away to avoid the
consequences. Throughout the movie he uses the people around him to
protect himself, and even when his noble side emerges it’s linked
to his self preservation. Rose, for all her dreams of married respectability, met
her prospective husband while selling her body to make a
living. She flatly states. he was “a guy in town for a good time.
The bellhop introduced us. Figure it out for yourself”. It’s the
chance of escaping her past and present, rather than love or commitment that pushes her toward
marriage. Even the one supposedly good character in the
movie, fisherman Nick is not without fault. Most glaringly, if he is
such a pious hard working family man (he even lives with his mother) why
was he visiting ladies of ill repute in cheap hotels? The whole sorry
situation just adds up to a portrayal of a broken society, crippled by
the Depression with lonely people desperate for any sort of comfort or solace
in the darkness. It’s the drama between the principle characters
that provides the most interest in the movie, alongside the timing of
the film’s release, and the muted performances of the leads, giving
<em>He Was Her Man</em> the nostalgic glow of the end of an era. It would be a
long time before movies would be as adult as this.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUy589SUfCYIZJgjdtRX5NxpilWGaPK_7EinDvKIouvolRgAAIG9WpxIpZHiUMNIOutchmuAGfV-VYxs7j-SUKjbKWeixr6_ygSBqF6fFV-qDTPd6obh2pcg5xdZocbcaKlR1VpWYLCU/s1600/He+Was+Her+Man+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUy589SUfCYIZJgjdtRX5NxpilWGaPK_7EinDvKIouvolRgAAIG9WpxIpZHiUMNIOutchmuAGfV-VYxs7j-SUKjbKWeixr6_ygSBqF6fFV-qDTPd6obh2pcg5xdZocbcaKlR1VpWYLCU/s400/He+Was+Her+Man+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b></b> </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances :
</b>Despite putting in a committed performance, James Cagney just
isn’t displaying his usual magic in this movie, so the star
performance honours have to go to Joan Blondell. It must have
been difficult to be one of James Cagney’s leading ladies as he’s
such a force of nature, an unstoppable firecracker of movement on the
screen that it was difficult for anyone to keep up with his electric
presence. Joan Blondell, probably more than anyone got as near to
being his perfect screen partner, complementing his hyperactivity
either with a peppy energy of her own or by a simple look of big eyed
charm. They appeared together in seven films, of which sadly this is
the seventh. Despite working together so often and having an obvious
chemistry they are rarely thought of as one of the great movie
partnerships. Great screen partnerships require a give and take and a
sense of equality but when working alongside Cagney, I’d imagine
just trying to keep up was the main concern. Overall, I’m not a
massive fan of Joan’s more restrained performances (of which this
is one), as her big eyes and round face give way to a kind of lost
puppy dog look that gets a bit wearing. For example, in <em>Union Depot</em>
the initial promise of her world weary character gives way to just
standing around in the later parts of the movie. She just seems more
comfortable playing a character that does something about her
problems, rather than submissively giving in to them. She plays a
similar sort of role in <em>He Was He Man</em> but thankfully she has a bit
more to do and she manages to make the most of what was probably on
paper another world weary victim role<b>. </b>She certainly saves the
part by injecting bursts of emotion in key scenes and her simmering
passion and confusion ensures she is just as much a focal point as
Cagney. Though in the end, it’s so difficult to criticise a Joan
Blondell performance as she’s just so likeable, and this movie
despite its flaws is no different.</div>
<br />
James Cagney puts in a
good performance despite playing a quieter and more restrained
version of his usual screen persona. He skilfully runs a fine line
between making the audience identify with Flicker as the hero of the
movie whilst reminding us that he is not to be trusted. As the movie
progresses and we naturally expect him to soften, Cagney’s use of
body language and facial expressions keep us on our guard. Even in a
comparatively minor film in his canon he gives a master class in
screen acting. There really is no such thing as a lazy Cagney performance, he can never be accused of phoning it in.
Other notables in the cast include Frank Craven as a duplicitous
informant, Harold Huber and Russell Hopton as a convincingly mean
pair of hit men and regular John Ford character actor John Qualen in
a charming part (and one that for once doesn’t require him to be
Swedish!) as a taxi driver. If you are particularly eagle eyed you
can also see Billy West, former silent screen comedian and Chaplin
impersonator in a one line part. I always get a kick out of seeing
Hollywood veterans, all with storied careers of their own appearing
in small parts in studio movies. Billy West doesn’t do or say much,
but it was nice to see him get a pay cheque.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical
Excellences: </b>Actually not much to recommend in terms of technical
innovation. As ever, Lloyd Bacon turns in a solid job at directing
(is there such a thing as a badly directed Lloyd Bacon movie?) but in
this case there’s not much to set <em>He Was Her Man</em> out from the
crowd. There are some nice locations used in the film, shot in
Monterey, California but even they are not used to their full
potential. Rather than the fishing village seeming like a safe place
hidden away from the outside world, it merely looks like any other
Hollywood coastal location. So all in all, a solid yet uninspiring
job done behind the camera. In fact, there was so little to inspire
visually that I actually got a bit excited when there was a screen
wipe used. I like screen wipes.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>Joan
Blondell’s character, Rose spends the first half of the movie
supposedly torn emotionally over whether to marry the kind and
dependable fisherman Nick, who she doesn’t really know or love, or
flashy criminal Flicker, who she finds herself growing more attracted
to. As a result of this mental confusion, and also the fact that the
part is woefully underwritten, she doesn’t really do much other
than do her best to look worried. The problem is, due to the script
we are never too sure what she is thinking. She could be wondering
who she really loves or worrying whether she left a pie in the oven;
it’s all a bit vague. Thankfully there is a wonderful scene late in
the movie where everything becomes clearer, and more importantly you
can see that Joan Blondell, far from her usual bright and breezy
screen persona has the acting ability to not only overcome poor
material but also to convey great emotional depth. In order to save
her from the two hit men, Flicker decides to tell her he was using
her all along and was never going to take her with him when he left
(which isn’t too far from the truth). The scene is played in medium
shot, with the reaction from Joan (mournfully stating “I understand…I understand
everything") in close up. In her close ups, Joan Blondell gives an
unbelievably intense stare that conveys her hurt, disappointment and
acceptance all at once. He leaves and she stands alone in the house,
completely broken but managing to convey a sense of release also. She
picks up her suitcase and makes her way back to her room. It’s one
of the best bits of acting I’ve seem Joan do, at once vulnerable and
tragic yet tinged with the inevitability of it all. Of course, the
fact that Flicker has just unknowingly saved her life adds meaning to
scene but she plays it beautifully. It seems that at about the time
she made the movie, Joan was going through quite a lot of pretty heavy stuff in her own
life, and perhaps her trials added to the emotional experience she could
draw on for the scene.
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Jwwbtg2sIWDmpFI0xp1Ov2uJkVmTJi2OtFqTt6CJE0rIk6q_BuWGWgxWl0u58oyY8Op9wwlBZCltppGRaQTkIj3BvHQSgzGnKTsi48kokWwSON9NKz8ClKtSKlGQVdZQh7-vIlnLzkw/s1600/He+Was+Her+Man+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Jwwbtg2sIWDmpFI0xp1Ov2uJkVmTJi2OtFqTt6CJE0rIk6q_BuWGWgxWl0u58oyY8Op9wwlBZCltppGRaQTkIj3BvHQSgzGnKTsi48kokWwSON9NKz8ClKtSKlGQVdZQh7-vIlnLzkw/s320/He+Was+Her+Man+3.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b></b><br />
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>The
movie is played straight and as<b> </b>such everyone gives solid
performances, and the script though under developed is treated with
reverence. The only vaguely ridiculous member of the cast is the one
residing on James Cagney’s top lip. Yes, Cagney sports an anaemic
moustache in this movie and it’s...er distracting to say the least.
He just looks so odd with facial hair, there’s an inherent
wrongness to it. Like a clean shaven Clark Gable or Ronald Colman, or
an unshaven Cary Grant, it’s just not right seeing Cagney with a
moustache. It changes him from a no nonsense tough guy to a slightly
oily con man (which is perhaps the point). Maybe it did suit the
part, or maybe Warren William wasn’t available. Who can say?.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth
watching? </b><em>He Was Her Man</em> is a very entertaining film despite its
flaws. On one hand it’s the epitome of a solidly made B picture
from a studio like Warners in the pre-code era. Star driven, with a
fast pace and short running time, it does its job of diverting the
attention from everyday matters. The plot, while fairly slight, has
a genuinely surprising resolution which keeps you guessing (and just
when you wonder what’s going to happen at the end, it suddenly
becomes <i>all about ice cream</i>! Really!) Visually and
artistically it’s nothing out of the ordinary, yet the whole effect
is eminently satisfying. In my very first blog post a few years ago, I
talked about how I was more interested in the films that slip through the
cracks of the well known film star filmographies. <em>He Was Her Man</em> is
exactly that, a solid James Cagney and Joan Blondell film that never gets talked about,
by a director that never gets talked about. Not great, and by no
means bad, just entertainment in its purest form. If you want to see
such a movie, and find who indeed <i>was</i> her man, this one is for
you.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote: </b>“Deus
Meus! I forget the ice cream! It will melt!”</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-14035697707289758332015-03-31T17:20:00.000-07:002015-03-31T17:20:09.355-07:00Snapshot # 3 - Union Depot (1932)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdA8t_XqjOpJ7LNtImZ-1nQFMnfBuslOVnt_iALdCBBcTudG9b8gcnH8xSS1YRL2_wz4nnKJ9Aa-OzIO_7Pz_rn8mwn2H7k5BCnfJ99CvSCd9b30q_P5WBXHgfoG9qLKipjL01SVlcmY/s1600/Union+Depot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdA8t_XqjOpJ7LNtImZ-1nQFMnfBuslOVnt_iALdCBBcTudG9b8gcnH8xSS1YRL2_wz4nnKJ9Aa-OzIO_7Pz_rn8mwn2H7k5BCnfJ99CvSCd9b30q_P5WBXHgfoG9qLKipjL01SVlcmY/s1600/Union+Depot.jpg" height="400" width="265" /></a></div>
<b></b><br />
<b>What is it about? :
</b>Amongst the hustle and bustle of a busy train station, a smart
talking hobo in a stolen suit passes himself off as a gentleman and
decides to help a young girl get some money for her train ticket. He
soon lands himself in trouble with a gang of forgers, the FBI and the
girl’s creepy stalker.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet :
</b>Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale,
David Landau, George Rosener, Frank McHugh<b> </b></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera :
</b>Directed by Alfred E. Green, Cinematography by Sol Polito, Art
direction by Jack Okey.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts :</b>
<em>Union Depot</em> is a typical Warner Brothers slice of Depression life,
and as such exudes the usual streetwise attitude and grimy
atmosphere. Pretty much everything that makes pre code films so
enjoyable are present in some form, but more importantly the movie
treats its audience as adults, being open and frank about the
realities of life in the big city in 1932. This results in a film
with a typically cynical, world weary viewpoint. Our hero, Chic
(Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is a vagrant who steals clothes to pass
himself off as someone else, continually lies, has no problem using stolen
money and has a less than savoury attitude towards women. All this is
treated as an acceptable by product of the environment. Along the
way we meet a variety of Depression era stock characters in the
titular Union Depot, each given a short vignette that hints at their
own inner dramas and conflicts. Some of the more interesting are a grubby pan handler who
only wants dollars and no less, a prostitute with money tucked into
her stockings, a woman on her way to Reno for a divorce, a girl in tears as she presumably leaves to get an abortion, and a degenerate stalker (complete with black glasses and limp)
with a penchant for having dirty books read to him. The list just
goes on and on. There is so much detail in the film that it requires
multiple viewings to take in every little moment. When this is
combined with a tightly plotted storyline driven by Douglas Fairbanks
Jr.'s curiously compelling character it all adds up to an evocative
and textured movie experience. In many ways the main plot serves only
as window dressing to the real story, the everyday struggles of
ordinary, sometimes unsavoury people trying to make a living during the
height of the Depression, and all passing through the crossroads of the Union Depot. The end result is never less than
entertaining.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HR-sqkbHSsJjt1Dhb6E3R_heblFOicCvqSdG0FhtIJWGxiLLi7sXW-Q0sVS5_GcyxLbyG6NpBeZJ7pCaM0Pt9DMypYDLQlHkyOmTitmyufoZSfM2ajsU5Ffb3ixEykuYR9tyzjK1nhk/s1600/Union+Depot+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_HR-sqkbHSsJjt1Dhb6E3R_heblFOicCvqSdG0FhtIJWGxiLLi7sXW-Q0sVS5_GcyxLbyG6NpBeZJ7pCaM0Pt9DMypYDLQlHkyOmTitmyufoZSfM2ajsU5Ffb3ixEykuYR9tyzjK1nhk/s1600/Union+Depot+4.jpg" height="400" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances :
</b>Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is definitely the star of the picture, and
gives a confident, swaggering performance as hobo turned gentleman
Chic Miller. He is at times unrecognisable from his matinee idol
image; skinny, wiry, unshaven, <em>sans</em> moustache, constantly chewing gum
and with an impassive grin, he is both charming yet deeply
unlikeable. His years on the road and being in and out of prison have
given Chic the rough edge of a survivor . A testament to Fairbanks' skill with
the character is his reaction to Ruth (Joan Blondell) not being the
good time girl he was expecting. He shockingly slaps her then berates
for not putting out and thus making a fool of him. Yet within
minutes, upon hearing Ruth’s sob story he agrees to help her, he
smiles and all is forgiven. By the end of the movie, with everything
resolved and goodbyes being said, Chic reaches the point where we
almost like and admire him (Ruth has certainly fallen for him),
though still with a lingering uneasiness that he is being less than sincere. That he manages this feat
really shows Fairbanks' natural charisma and ease in front of the camera. Although perhaps better known as
an actor from his late 30s films onwards, Fairbanks here proves to be
an underrated pre code anti hero. The rest of the cast is the usual
line up of stellar character actors including an excellent turn from
Guy Kibbee as Chic’s eternally grinning best friend, a chilling
George Rosener as the depraved stalker, a small but effective cameo
from Frank McHugh as a drunk and the usual blink and you’ll miss
them walk ons from the likes of Charles Lane, Irving Bacon and
Dorothy Christy.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical
Excellences: </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">If it's </span>the
various minor characters given fleeting appearances that really gives
the film its flavour, this is bolstered no end by the stunning
cinematography of Sol Polito. Polito was Warner Brothers/First National go to
cinematographer during this period and as such really outlined the
look and mood of the studio in the pre code era. His work on <em>I Am
a Fugitive From a Chain Gang</em> defined the darkness and cynicism of the
era and more of his great work can be seen in films such as <em>Three on
a Match</em>, <em>Five Star Final</em>, <em>The Mind Reader</em> and<em> Picture Snatcher</em> to
name but a few. <em>Union Depot</em> is no different and in fact probably
contains some of his finest work. This is seen particularly in the
open scene where the camera enters the station, and floats up and
down, focusing on the various people in the depot and their lives and
dramas. The camera moves in a fluid, dreamlike way, eavesdropping on
each scene then leaving just as it gets intriguing. The shot lasts a
couple of minutes and must have been extraordinarily complicated for
Polito and director Alfred E. Green to set up but the end result is one
seamlessly edited, photographed and directed extended shot of pure cinema. Alfred E. Green deserves some
credit too, despite being generally regarded as a journeyman studio director he
manages to make the complexity of <em>Union Depot</em>’s busy plot and
multiple characters flow very smoothly with a brisk pace. Mention
also needs to be made of the location and set work. The depot itself really
is the real star of the movie, from the impressively large station to
the darkened train tracks shrouded in gloom. Apparently all the
locations were massive sets constructed on the Warner lot, and in which
case my hat is off to the designer as they look astounding. On a final
technical note, the decision to do without a musical score for the
movie is a stroke of genius. Instead of incidental music the
soundtrack is populated by the noises of people in the
station combined with the ever present clanging of the train bells
and shunting and hissing of the steam engines, giving the film an
almost otherworldly feeling. In an era where sound was used
predominantly to record endless dialogue, <em>Union Depot</em> puts its
Vitaphone capabilities to creative use.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>The
opening scene just has to be watched, it is a thing of beauty. As I
mentioned, the choreography and direction must have been extremely complicated but
it flows stunningly well. As the film starts with the Union Depot
sign and the sound of a funereal clock chiming the camera starts its
journey and we see glimpses of other people's lives: a newspaper
seller, a drunk, a man selling wooden duck toys, a brass band, all
combined with the rumble of the streets in the
background. As we step into the station the camera lifts into the sky
and proceeds to swoop down to eavesdrop on a variety of everyday
situations played out by the commuters. The snippets of dialogue here
are sparkling with earthy wit. A haughty society lady asks at a news
stand “Haven’t you a ‘Town and Country’?” to which the man
behind the counter replies in a thick accent, “I did, only they
took it away from us three thousand years ago”. A sailor
propositions a flapper with “C’mon sweetheart, I ain’t
like most sailors” to which the girl snaps back, “Then I ain’t
interested!”. A starlet on her way to Hollywood clutching a small
dog is asked to show some leg by a reporter. She is reluctant but
shows an ankle until he says “Think of your public!” and she
hoists it up to thigh height! There are so many little moments like
this that are beautifully observed that one wonders what Lubitsch or
Cukor could’ve done with the material. However, if the movie had
their sort of polish, so much of its grimy charm would be lost. As
it is, the opening shot of <em>Union Depot</em> deserves to be remembered as
one of the cinematic highlights of the pre code era, as it
encapsulates everything both socially and cinematically that makes
early sound films so evocative and thrilling.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyDww6XyhNwRokd0UqJ9OsT-FqniVZhUiOVRtmZZgcq8t4cld7zvNhPVTFp-AATgU6h5acY4MazFl-5CpOcrn7om9WhFDVnCpxzT2HXVb7LqjKMda35xhwN2NmIkZ8gQ9Zggr85MhRo0/s1600/Union+Depot+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgyDww6XyhNwRokd0UqJ9OsT-FqniVZhUiOVRtmZZgcq8t4cld7zvNhPVTFp-AATgU6h5acY4MazFl-5CpOcrn7om9WhFDVnCpxzT2HXVb7LqjKMda35xhwN2NmIkZ8gQ9Zggr85MhRo0/s1600/Union+Depot+3.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous:
</b>Though the movie is generally very entertaining there are a few
scenes and details that let it down somewhat. Most perplexing is the
scene where Chic mistakes Ruth for a prostitute at the station and offers to "work out a scheme" to pay for her train ticket.
Whether Ruth is aware of his intentions is left ambiguous though she does
mention that she desperately needs the money and agrees to go to a hotel room with Chic. When they get to
the seedy hotel room Chic puts on the mood music but once Ruth realises
exactly what sort of arrangement she is part of and starts crying,
Chic flies into a rage and slaps her. The scene is well acted in
itself but it displays a troubling attitude to women on the part of
our hero. He has nothing but contempt for prostitutes, yet seemingly
has no problems with using them. Furthermore, when a woman refuses to
go along with the ‘scheme’ he loses his temper and complains
about how they have made a sucker of him. However, the
minute he finds out that Ruth is actually fairly virtuous (though
she’s ‘no Pollyanna’), his demeanour changes entirely and he
becomes the epitome of charm and ready to help. It’s a worrying
attitude, particularly for the behaviour of a supposed hero (or even
anti hero), but doubtless one that was (and still is) not uncommon
amongst men. This doesn’t exactly qualify as a ‘ridiculous’
moment but it’s one that leaves about as sour a taste as anything
I’ve seen in a pre code movie.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Another problem with
the movie is its use of Joan Blondell. By 1932 she had graduated to
starring roles and had a string of memorable parts behind her, yet
here she’s an afterthought. I’m unclear when this was filmed in
relation to her other movies of the time but there are moments when
her acting is quite stilted and unsure, and lacks the pep of her usual
appearances. Even worse, as the movie draws to a close and the
mystery is being untangled, she is so incidental to the plot that she
spends the last reel either sitting or standing around in silence,
with cuts to occasional close ups where she attempts to convey a mix
of fear, disappointment or bewilderment with mixed results. In fact for one moment it
looks like she has fallen asleep waiting for her next line. So
between being slapped about and ignored, <em>Union Depot</em> is not her
finest hour. Luckily the movie gives us the gift of Alan Hale to
lighten the tone and his truly preposterous German accent,
complete with heavy rolling 'r's ("put this young rrrascal behind bars!"). Combined with the fact that
it’s difficult to see Alan Hale as anything other than the genial
sidekick, he’s the least convincing villain you are likely to find. Sadly, that's not the original intention.<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXc3kYkEKd02p21tcFgsYMoubQO7-axuQ1hOiw8loN7yydTQ9wHyQBNUdW7uvfRZxsTbd7VxvwCW9OpNG5S7M-eo9WKgFkXk-jfXoPUR5Fe91ClWDP4VhQYf_xaDsVM1aTI9qK90MyR-0/s1600/Union+Depot+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXc3kYkEKd02p21tcFgsYMoubQO7-axuQ1hOiw8loN7yydTQ9wHyQBNUdW7uvfRZxsTbd7VxvwCW9OpNG5S7M-eo9WKgFkXk-jfXoPUR5Fe91ClWDP4VhQYf_xaDsVM1aTI9qK90MyR-0/s1600/Union+Depot+2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Is it worth
watching? </b>Definitely. Aside from the opening shot (have I
mentioned that the opening shot is amazing and that you need to see
it?), the whole movie just bursts with Warner Brothers' unique brand
of pre code ’social realism’. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. does play a
troublingly unlikeable character but nonetheless brings rugged charm
to the role. Sadly Joan Blondell is completely wasted but at least
she is there and though slightly muted, is never less that lovely.
However, at the end of the day, the real star is the Union Depot
itself, and its ever present soundtrack of bellowing porters and
clanging bells. That the film begins and ends with the Union Depot
sign emphasises the importance of the location as the only real
constant in the movie. Everyone else is just passing through.<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<strong>Random Quote: </strong>"I can't stand a dame who plays me for a sucker. Why only a couple of minutes ago I walked out on a little tramp. The minute I saw you I knew it was a conquest"
</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-76074101411355459212015-02-28T10:41:00.001-08:002015-02-28T10:41:39.675-08:00Snapshot # 2 - Internes Can't Take Money (1937)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYorNtcXGDHm2kZQvBnSpvXUEN8pm2E7bpwPb4QnsTAFlnWEleoKcrRYyXiMs9P00arjRdwpIIdcSaQKMCjoO0PgPfk8LX2qGsJuaRtDXc7N0T2BIBywpeFU67tKQ0ouJ8Gvz-c6g2KZI/s1600/internes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYorNtcXGDHm2kZQvBnSpvXUEN8pm2E7bpwPb4QnsTAFlnWEleoKcrRYyXiMs9P00arjRdwpIIdcSaQKMCjoO0PgPfk8LX2qGsJuaRtDXc7N0T2BIBywpeFU67tKQ0ouJ8Gvz-c6g2KZI/s1600/internes.jpg" height="400" width="273" /></a></div>
<b></b><br />
<b>What is it about?:
</b>A young medical intern named Dr. Kildare helps a widowed ex-con
to find her missing child and avoid the clutches of an unscrupulous
mobster...<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Call Sheet:
</b>Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Lloyd Nolan, Stanley Ridges with
Irving Bacon, Barry Mccollum and Charles Lane<b> </b></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Behind the Camera:
</b>Directed by Alfred Santell. Story by Max Brand (aka Frederick
Schiller Faust). Cinematography by Theodor Sparkuhl. Art direction by
Roland Anderson and Hans Dreier.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b>
Aside from it’s archaic spelling of ‘Intern’, <em>Internes Can’t
Take Money</em> is an odd little film. It’s the very first Dr. Kildare movie yet
it stars Barbara Stanwyck and largely side lines Joel McCrea’s
Kildare, with the end result being that it succeeds in fully showcasing neither. The
following year, MGM took over the Dr. Kildare series and recast
it with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore and in doing so created a very successful and well remembered movie franchise, but this film is an almost noir-ish anomaly.
As it is, it’s an interesting mix of medical drama, gangster film
and melodrama with a stellar ensemble cast. I have no idea why
Barbara Stanwyck took on the film as it seems like such a B picture
for a star of her stature. Despite this, Joel McCrea is everything you
would need from a dashing young doctor: tall, blond, principled and
fearless and he always has good chemistry with Stanwyck. Barbara Stanwyck herself is the epitome of melodramatic
desperation: she spends the majority of the film with her eyes
glistening with fresh tears (they never <em>quite</em> roll down her cheek), forever on the verse of emotional
collapse and fuelled by determined motherly love. However, because the movie splits its time between
their individual plotlines, sadly neither star is well serviced by the
film.
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirAjla-sXHxgJfpKOMCJoTqrbOBt23014G18Dfg-NlYZCOa4Rlwnwc8hbduXWftU_PslArWPaUgZWngiFJc7Woc_BnzItPsWwT7k6PaVHoG3zr_HGC5N8e0sHtt63reN-t2Eu4UkARgj4/s1600/internes+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirAjla-sXHxgJfpKOMCJoTqrbOBt23014G18Dfg-NlYZCOa4Rlwnwc8hbduXWftU_PslArWPaUgZWngiFJc7Woc_BnzItPsWwT7k6PaVHoG3zr_HGC5N8e0sHtt63reN-t2Eu4UkARgj4/s1600/internes+2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b></b> </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Star Performances:
</b>While the two stars are good in their roles, the movie ultimately
belongs to the supporting cast of character actors playing the
story’s many underworld dwellers. Lloyd Nolan is excellent as ever as
the gangster whose life is saved by Kildare and although he is only
in the last 15 minutes of the film he gives considerable depth and
range to the part, transforming from anger to understanding at Dr.
Kildare’s situation in a brilliant piece of emotional acting. Also
of note are Charles Lane as the world’s grumpiest butler and Irving
Bacon as a eye patch wearing barman, both adding some (off) colour charm to the proceedings. However, Stanley Ridges pretty
much steals the picture, and every scene he’s in as the blackmailing criminal Dan
Innes.
Relaxed, smug and confident, he is a man perfectly at ease with his place in the world. His life is a continuous game of
exerting power over people, from his butler (a friend who lost a card
game to him and was shanghaied into service to pay the debt) to
Stanwyck’s Janet Haley, to whom he dangles the carrot of knowledge about
her missing child. One of the props that Ridges uses to his advantage
is the character’s love of popcorn. The popcorn has many uses in
the movie, mostly as an innuendo laden conversation topic, but the
way he casually takes handfuls, rolls them around in the palm of his hand and
chews slowly just reeks menace and intimidation. He may dress very
dapperly, and his apartment is that of a playboy who likes the finer things in life, but Stanley Ridges
never lets the audience forget how dangerous and callous a thug Innes really is.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Technical
Excellences: </b>Despite the movie being a B picture, it is shot and
dressed like a far more prestigious vehicle. The art direction by
Paramount mainstays Roland Anderson and Hans Dreier are superb, with
the hospital and bar sets being stylish and evocative. The hospital
set in itself is a thing of beauty, with Art Deco designs and
lettering combining with an open plan clinic with large bay windows
displaying stylised matte views of the Manhattan skyline. Later, the
bar set reverses the feeling, giving a turn of the century, dingy, smoky environment where
backroom deals are done and shady mobster hurry back and forth
through the grubbily ornate swing doors. A lot of thought has been
put into the look of the movie and it lifts the production from a run
of the mill melodrama to a brilliantly conceived slice of late
Depression life.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Sublime: </b>Perhaps
the highlight of the movie occurs when Janet (Barbara Stanwyck)
visits Innes (Stanley Ridges) in his apartment to attempt to come to
some sort of 'arrangement' for information about her missing daughter.
The scene starts with an insight into Innes’ life as he sits in bed
clad in his expensive dressing gown eating breakfast (which looks
suspiciously like popcorn) served by his ill mannered butler Grote (a
brilliantly chosen name for surly Charles Lane). Janet arrives and
the two move through to the living room to talk, all the time the
walls glowing with the dancing shadows of the rain hitting the
windows outside. Innes tries to turn on the charm but Janet nervously ignores
it . In a nice piece of business, when Stanwyck sits down the chair
is quite low and exposes her knee. She subtly and awkwardly pulls her
skirt down as she adjusts her seat while he eyes her wolfishly.
The conversation turns to what she can do for him and as ever, he
brings up the subject of popcorn, saying “I didn’t always like
popcorn. I didn’t like it until I tried it. First it was kind of
hard to take, used to stick in my craw. I guess I hit you about the
same way, don’t I?” He purrs the words in a deliberate way that
leaves no doubt as to what he’s really suggesting, and all the while his eyes seem to be imagining what sort of arrangement Janet and he could come to. Never has
popcorn seemed to threatening.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf0ZLal3A-hdbN1qPSkXhnFODEyq0p4gjv6q_sT_pvZqIX25-4QGE5jaaABoqZNJx8E9JZ8cTpe5Fka02pGYBy_4rIfHhZ1eVulw9QJ5xJ-Ly3xdCp_3YX5k9rg3PJ1b5R19AKJazImtM/s1600/Internes+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf0ZLal3A-hdbN1qPSkXhnFODEyq0p4gjv6q_sT_pvZqIX25-4QGE5jaaABoqZNJx8E9JZ8cTpe5Fka02pGYBy_4rIfHhZ1eVulw9QJ5xJ-Ly3xdCp_3YX5k9rg3PJ1b5R19AKJazImtM/s1600/Internes+4.jpg" height="292" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b></b> </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The Ridiculous: </b>The
30’s must have been a confusing time to live in if you had lost a
child. Stanwyck’s character Janet spends most of the movie trying
to find her lost three year old daughter in orphanages despite not
having seen her since she was a baby. She’s told (quite reasonably)
by a kindly nun that “babies change a good deal in two years. Their
features change”, but despite this Janet feels she only needs to
look into the child’s eyes to know which little moppet is hers.
She’s also good at picking needles out of haystacks I hear. Oh, and
this despite the fact that the orphanage only need the barest of
anecdotal evidence to be convinced that they should give a child to a
woman fresh out of prison, but I digress. Anyway, I don’t have to
spoil it for you for you to guess how it ends, but just to hammer
home <em>every available cliché</em> we are treated to an astonishing final
tableaux of mother and daughter reunited as a heavenly choir sings,
flanked in shadows by the Mother Superior, the good Dr Kildare and a
massive statue of the Virgin Mary that looms up onto the screen out
of nowhere. Praise be! For it is a miracle! Boy, did those Jewish
Hollywood people love their Catholic imagery but I guess it kept the
censors happy.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Is it worth
watching? </b>It’s certainly a by the numbers Barbara Stanwyck
film, and is possibly one of her most forgettable appearances of the
decade but she’s likable and vulnerable and determined as ever and
doesn’t disappoint. If you are a fan of the Dr. Kildare series then <em>Internes Can't Take Money</em>
it has to be watched as a curiosity (in the same way that the first
sound Charlie Chan film <em>Behind That Curtain</em> bears no resemblance
to the long running series that followed it) and an interesting
comparison. If you don’t judge it as a Dr. Kildare film then
there’s a lot to like. The movie looks great, is directed with style and
has a fine cast of well written characters. All in all an
overachieving B movie with an A list cast. Bring your own popcorn.
</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Random Quote:
</b>“Popcorn’s good for you, you know. Roughage.”</div>
Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8557817177464738736.post-6450799342585641382015-02-19T16:54:00.000-08:002015-02-28T08:59:17.529-08:00Snapshot #1 - Five and Ten (1931)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOn1Rk32Bha9m05urQc7bRmiJYelA-OaE-EVBF_6_4g4olEOyRZRamK1pYJrSXzZYRW7schYjTNO5o_p3tCQyLcrvQigtHdgbbMPb59cPp9KceVm96Vuh6gh9uqKhh6TFmUN3AZRlWrU/s1600/5133669-five-and-ten-leslie-howard-marion-davies-1931.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOn1Rk32Bha9m05urQc7bRmiJYelA-OaE-EVBF_6_4g4olEOyRZRamK1pYJrSXzZYRW7schYjTNO5o_p3tCQyLcrvQigtHdgbbMPb59cPp9KceVm96Vuh6gh9uqKhh6TFmUN3AZRlWrU/s1600/5133669-five-and-ten-leslie-howard-marion-davies-1931.gif" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<strong>What's it About?:</strong> John Rarick is the owner of the largest five and ten cent store in the country and decides to bring his family from Kansas City to the bright lights of New York City. As he gets more wrapped up in his business he fails to notice that his once happy family is unravelling in front of his eyes. His daughter Jennifer attempts some social climbing with disastrous results and falls in love with an engaged society maven. His bored wife plans an affair and his son Avery starts drinking to cope with the pressure of having to inherit the family business. Misery ensues…<br />
<br />
<b>The Call Sheet: </b>Marion Davies, Leslie Howard, Richard Bennett, Irene Rich, Douglass Montgomery (as Kent Douglass), Marry Duncan and uncredited appearances from Haliwell Hobbes and Henry Armetta<br />
<br />
<b>Behind the Camera:</b> Directed by an uncredited Robert Z. Leonard. Costumes by Adrian. Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons. A Marion Davies Production!<br />
<br />
<b>Snapshot Thoughts:</b> Though the film is essentially about the disintegration of the Rarick family, the story mainly focuses on the fraught love affair between Jennifer (Marion Davies) and socialite Berry (Leslie Howard). Their tragedy being that Berry is engaged to be married to a woman ‘of his class’, while Jennifer is ‘new money’ a thus unable to fit into his society without the clutching of pearls and the clenching of teeth from all and sundry. Can’t all the rich people just get along? Luckily (or unluckily depending on your view) Berry is an also absolute cad with a wandering eye and is easily tempted away from his fiancé’s arms. When Jennifer visits his apartment for the first time he suddenly and randomly strokes her bare arm, presumably with the intension to shock her (and the audience) with his boldness. Unfortunately, it just comes across as inappropriate and awkward (she should've reached for the pepper spray) and resembles the fumbling of two teenagers on a first date to the ice cream parlour. The scene sets the tone for the interaction between the leads but nonetheless it’s a testament to Leslie Howard’s ability that Berry is at least vaguely likable because on paper he’s a bit of a creep. The love story has some good moments but sadly takes over far too much of the movie which could have been better spent exploring the relationships of the Rarick family as they struggle to cope with their new wealth. Instead we get a rather damp and ill-tempered romance that weighs down the film.<br />
<br />
<b>Star Performances:</b> Marion Davies and Leslie Howard are very charming as the romantic leads but sadly there is virtually no chemistry between them, despite the smoke and mirrors of the script to wring some romantic tension out of their affair. Despite this, the supporting cast is very appealing, led by famous stage star Richard Bennett as the family patriarch in a good role. He’s a sort of combination between Lionel Barrymore and Lewis Stone and plays John Rarick with a great deal of subtlety and care. He succeeds in maintaining our sympathy for the character despite his many failings and his blindness to what is going on around him. However, the star of the movie is Douglass Montgomery (here under his early career name of Kent Douglass) as brother Avery. He is only in a few scenes but his transformation from happy go lucky youngster to pressured businessman and finally to alcoholic wreck is well played. Montgomery has an unusual look, an intense yet young looking face, a shock of blond hair and an impossible prettiness that must have made him hard to cast in suitable roles. He’s definitely not the traditional leading man, but he’s very good here as the tortured brother, and shows real talent.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQF-wXWqOAWDbNVc0-yM-y0yf3QHUWDWc_pHUzgpbT3-bZByD5xh4TMz64ZCEVVNfvwQypSoULkRKp0J84cRNyK8bAxhUCS8X6IELZFRD6sAHZ51_eP1_7lXPD2quxLZEdTMjERp7yb8/s1600/Douglass+Montgomery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQF-wXWqOAWDbNVc0-yM-y0yf3QHUWDWc_pHUzgpbT3-bZByD5xh4TMz64ZCEVVNfvwQypSoULkRKp0J84cRNyK8bAxhUCS8X6IELZFRD6sAHZ51_eP1_7lXPD2quxLZEdTMjERp7yb8/s1600/Douglass+Montgomery.jpg" height="320" width="241" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Technical Excellences:</b> It’s never a good sign when there is no director’s credit on a film, and I’m not sure the circumstances of this omission but uncredited or not, Robert Z. Leonard does a good job. Despite being quite stagey at times, everyone looks great and the action travels at a good pace. In the main scenes between Davies and Howard there are some admirably long takes employed and these extended scenes at least help give an organic feel to their relationship. This is a useful way to hide the slight lack of sparkle between the two leads.<br />
<br />
<b>The Sublime:</b> The best scene sees Berry enter Jennifer’s room unannounced while she is in her nightgown. Despite her ‘what would people think?’ protestations, he refuses to leave, and regardless of her attempts to resist him, she doesn’t want him to leave either. After a few breathless embraces, the stalemate is broken and he wearily says "Now look here, you know I’m not a man of honor. Don’t look at me like that, won’t do any good!". He then reluctantly asks her to get dressed, but of course, while she is dressing he covers his eyes, then immediately sneaks a peek! Somehow the fact that he has been so noble convinces Jennifer that he actually loves her and suddenly the roles become reversed - he becomes uncomfortable and wants to leave and she is the one pleading for him to stay. All this makes Leslie Howard’s character a bit too morally corrupt to be the usual idle yet erudite dreamer we are used to from him, but Howard plays it in such a way that you have to at least admire his nerve. In a film marred by leaden love scenes, this is the one that manages to impress, and both Davies and Howard do well to give the impression of deep emotional conflicts running beneath their need to be together.<br />
<br />
<b>The Ridiculous:</b> Avery (Douglass Montgomery)’s decline is a highlight of the movie for drama, but the way it ends is definitely not. It’s established that he has started hitting the bottle to cope with his problems, and in true movie fashion he downs a couple of stiff drinks, then <em>immediately</em> starts staggering around and slurring his words (I’d love to get some of that fast acting Hollywood booze!). Just then, he has a moment of clarity and realises that the family is starting to fall irreparably apart. Oh no! Seeing his moment he mumbles “There’s an answer to everything” and runs off. Next, we cut to him FLYING AN AIRPLANE, (still in his suit!), and before you can blink he’s crashed straight into a forest in a cloud of smoke. You know, I have a suspicion that he didn't think through his answer. Personally I would have just called a family meeting, but I guess it was a simpler time in 1931 so I can't judge. It’s an utterly ludicrous, yet glorious moment of insanity that seemingly arrives out of a different (and funnier) movie. It’s a good job he talked about his love of flying earlier as foreshadowing and…oh wait, he didn’t, did he? Hmm. Anyway, he dies but you know what? It brings the family back together, so what do I know about family reconciliation? Simpler times.<br />
<br />
<b>Is it Worth Watching?:</b> Well, fans of Marion Davies will definitely want to watch <em>Five and Ten</em>, as she’s rather charming and gets to show her dramatic skills a bit more than usual Leslie Howard is fairly disappointing but they both try hard with a dull script. In the end it’s a pretty average melodrama but one that is worth a look if you bypass the main story and focus on the secondary plot lines and the cast of top notch supporting actors. It also has to be pointed out that Marion Davies wears a hat for approximately 80% of the movie, so make of that what you will.<br />
<br />
<b>Random Quote:</b> "Well, if I must be a hero, give me a little help will you? Take some of these arms away from me. For heaven's sake put some clothes on, I won't look". Russellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11455919210943848573noreply@blogger.com0