What the previous commenter says about the movie is basically true--this is simply an escapist picture-postcard movie with a bad, clumsy script. The action, what there is of it, makes no particular sense and the romance is dull and pointless. Some lines of dialogue, like the one about "no paragraph about Welshmen" (used twice!) are actually stupid. However, the commenter also went over the top himself when discussing the movie's condescension. Robert Wagner doesn't say "Ah, Madame Butterfly" to a waitress. She's not a waitress, she's a famous Japanese diva that he met on the flight to Japan, and it's explained in the first scene that she's known for playing Butterfly. So there's nothing condescending or inappropriate about it, but this detail is so clumsily placed (like everything else) that I can't blame the viewer for misunderstanding it.
Reviews
43 Reviews
The Amazing Mr. X
(1948)
Clearing up a couple of points
6 June 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I echo the praise for this film that others have contributed to this page, and I want to clear up a couple of points.
1) Alton's photography is indeed wonderful, but others are credited for "special photographic effects" and "special art effects." Clearly this refers to the "ghost" superimposition that chases the heroine, but I assume it also refers to the lousy matte (rear projection?) work on some of the beach scenes. I'm glad Alton doesn't deserve blame for that.
2) Several people have questioned the "plot hole" about how Christine's husband has supported himself for two years. I don't see any plot hole. Christine's lawyer/boyfriend says he has evidence the man was some kind of bigamist who lived off rich women before, so we don't have to use too much imagination to wonder how he's been living recently or why he's showed up again after two years.
1) Alton's photography is indeed wonderful, but others are credited for "special photographic effects" and "special art effects." Clearly this refers to the "ghost" superimposition that chases the heroine, but I assume it also refers to the lousy matte (rear projection?) work on some of the beach scenes. I'm glad Alton doesn't deserve blame for that.
2) Several people have questioned the "plot hole" about how Christine's husband has supported himself for two years. I don't see any plot hole. Christine's lawyer/boyfriend says he has evidence the man was some kind of bigamist who lived off rich women before, so we don't have to use too much imagination to wonder how he's been living recently or why he's showed up again after two years.
The Grapes of Death
(1978)
About that decapitation (spoilers)
1 August 2004
Warning: Spoilers
I just saw this Synapse DVD last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I have to add a different perspective on the decapitation scene that everyone seems to enjoy. The most shocking and significant part of the scene is the crucifixion, but the head-chopping itself . . . well, it's about as believable as Herschell Gordon Lewis. It's one of those things where a limp, soft, human actress instantly turns into a stiff wooden or plastic mannequin coated with paint. You can even hear the wooden chunk of the hatchet going through! You can only laugh. And the editing of that scene looks like a hatchet was used there too. It's like the director or producer thought he needed a "money shot." That's the most unconvincing moment in the movie, the low point of an otherwise pretty decent, paranoid, nicely photographed nightmare with character touches and subversive elements.
By the way, my favorite element is the fact that the baddies aren't real "living dead" zombies and they don't want to eat the living. They're just people with a disease that drives them mad, but they can be killed in any ordinary way and they don't get up again. That makes it a bit more like "The Crazies" or "Rabid" or "Blue Sunshine" than a traditional zombie movie.
By the way, my favorite element is the fact that the baddies aren't real "living dead" zombies and they don't want to eat the living. They're just people with a disease that drives them mad, but they can be killed in any ordinary way and they don't get up again. That makes it a bit more like "The Crazies" or "Rabid" or "Blue Sunshine" than a traditional zombie movie.
The Ape
(1940)
Karloff and Siodmak add class to ridiculous tale
17 July 2004
It doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but this cheapie was better than I expected, thanks not only to Karloff's sympathetic performance but to a script by Curt Siodmak, who did much better things. Once you accept that the main idea is stupid, you can appreciate that each individual scene is well-written in terms of character development. Everyone is slightly more ambiguous than their stock character usually would be. The "mad" doctor is sincerely concerned with the insipid heroine who reminds him of his daughter, and his madness is a kind of beautiful tragedy. The "good" boyfriend says he doesn't want her hurt, but he also seems jealous of the doctor and resentful that the heroine won't be so dependent on him. There's real tension in their triangle. The hick sheriff is almost sharp enough to figure things out. The town blowhard gets several scenes showing what a well-chiseled wretch he is, especially the scene with his pathetic wife. The small-towners are all various little unflattering types--lazy, suspicious, gossipy, narrow-minded--not exactly an ad for rural life. Karloff's maid seems mute except when she suddenly whispers one word. There's a city doctor who comes on as an antagonist, then gets converted into an ally by Karloff's evidence, and disappears from the movie! There's the wise caretaker, introduced in a surprising pan shot that begins with a black circus worker playing a trumpet for a dancing elephant and ending with the ape being provoked by the rotten trainer. The very ending, too, has a certain power if you meet the movie halfway. The trouble is, just as you're pulled into the simplicity and effectiveness of all these human scenes, along comes another scene with that apesuit to pull the rug out from under the movie's credibility. The ape is the worst thing about THE APE!
Spewing from the core (SPOILERS)
13 April 2003
Warning: Spoilers
I just saw the DVD of this Cinemascope film from 1959 and found it quite dull except for two elements: Bernard Herrmann's music, and the fact that Pat Boone and tall blond Peter Ronson spend half the movie shirtless. Their pecs are the most impressive effects.
On the surface, as it were, the movie sounds more interesting than it is, but it's incapable of handling its own subtext. It's about the discovery of the erotic by travelling from the repressed northern civilization of Scotland through Iceland to submerged pagan heat. A misogynistic scientist (James Mason) who surrounds himself with strapping lads (his students) goes into a dead volcano, complaining bitterly all the way at being saddled with a woman (a widow, a sign of sexual experience) until they get soaked in a whirpool at the core and he begins to warm up to her. The near-naked Boone also comes on to her at one point but she reminds him that he's got a girl waiting. (He has self-consciously evaded the engagement out of various rationales, financial and scientific.) After facing giant mushrooms (implying the heady nature of the experience) and superimposed iguanas, they discover a ruined temple in Atlantis and climb in a big bowl for sacrifices to the serpent god, which they ride like a cork up the volcano--p.o.v. shots shooting up the tube, reverse shots of Mason and Arlene Dahl floored in orgasmic wonder.
They are ejaculated or re-birthed into the world, landing in the sea, except Boone who lands naked in a tree surrounded by nuns. This typifies the movie's retreat into merry humor, seemingly aimed at kids, whenever it nears the throbbing pulse of its all-too-limp narrative propulsion. Ronson is introduced when Mason and Boone overhear him (they think) kissing and cooing to his lover Gertrude, who turns out to be a duck. Lord, he loves a duck (thus perversely representing the unselfconscious tenderness of foreigners) and flies into a murderous rage when another man eats her. (The duck as sacrificial virgin? Hmm, duck . . . duck . . . ) A pivotal moment, gratuitous except for the subtext, is also played for laffs at an edenic pool where Boone showers behind a discreetly placed boulder and Mason tells Dahl she'll have to take off her "stays" (corset) because it'll be too hot. Their dialogue is played for mutual embarrassment and the duck runs away with the stays. The erotic implications of the moment are themselves stiffly corseted in juvenile humor. We are meant to be amused at these uptight Victorians, never noticing the joke is at our expense, because it is we who must be spared.
On the surface, as it were, the movie sounds more interesting than it is, but it's incapable of handling its own subtext. It's about the discovery of the erotic by travelling from the repressed northern civilization of Scotland through Iceland to submerged pagan heat. A misogynistic scientist (James Mason) who surrounds himself with strapping lads (his students) goes into a dead volcano, complaining bitterly all the way at being saddled with a woman (a widow, a sign of sexual experience) until they get soaked in a whirpool at the core and he begins to warm up to her. The near-naked Boone also comes on to her at one point but she reminds him that he's got a girl waiting. (He has self-consciously evaded the engagement out of various rationales, financial and scientific.) After facing giant mushrooms (implying the heady nature of the experience) and superimposed iguanas, they discover a ruined temple in Atlantis and climb in a big bowl for sacrifices to the serpent god, which they ride like a cork up the volcano--p.o.v. shots shooting up the tube, reverse shots of Mason and Arlene Dahl floored in orgasmic wonder.
They are ejaculated or re-birthed into the world, landing in the sea, except Boone who lands naked in a tree surrounded by nuns. This typifies the movie's retreat into merry humor, seemingly aimed at kids, whenever it nears the throbbing pulse of its all-too-limp narrative propulsion. Ronson is introduced when Mason and Boone overhear him (they think) kissing and cooing to his lover Gertrude, who turns out to be a duck. Lord, he loves a duck (thus perversely representing the unselfconscious tenderness of foreigners) and flies into a murderous rage when another man eats her. (The duck as sacrificial virgin? Hmm, duck . . . duck . . . ) A pivotal moment, gratuitous except for the subtext, is also played for laffs at an edenic pool where Boone showers behind a discreetly placed boulder and Mason tells Dahl she'll have to take off her "stays" (corset) because it'll be too hot. Their dialogue is played for mutual embarrassment and the duck runs away with the stays. The erotic implications of the moment are themselves stiffly corseted in juvenile humor. We are meant to be amused at these uptight Victorians, never noticing the joke is at our expense, because it is we who must be spared.
Old San Francisco
(1927)
Religion conquers all
8 April 2003
The climax of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake might be model work made for the film, but it also looks like it might be stock footage (perhaps from Lon Chaney's movie THE SHOCK or something else). In any case, this film and THE SHOCK adopt the "cosmic retribution" angle that the dust-up was really a Gomorrah-like act of divine intervention against the Barbary excesses of Chinatown and such. Anna May Wong is thanklessly wasted as the sinfully exquisite assistant of future Charlie Chan Warner Oland, a ruthless land shark who doesn't let anyone know he's really Chinese. He keeps his jeering dwarf brother in a cage and terrorizes the heiress of an old Spanish family, whose righteous Christian iconography pierces his "mongol heart." He codifies the social and sexual threat of "passing" and miscegenation, which is depicted as repulsive to both races. But this is all articulated in religious terms. The anglos refer to his "heathen gods," while the Chinese get irate that he "betrays his ancestors." For a festival of Asian-American images in silent films, compare this with the more ambiguous sexual morality of Cecil B. DeMille's THE CHEAT with Sessue Hayakawa, the tragedy of Wong's role in THE TOLL OF THE SEA, the later films made by Hayakawa, or even Griffith's BROKEN BLOSSOMS.
Dimples
(1936)
interesting racial angles
25 January 2003
People are often made uncomfortable by elements that reveal racial attitudes in old movies, but those elements can make the movie fascinating. "Dimples", which is set in the 1850s before the Civil War, often makes explicit references to slavery and also reveals 1930s stereotypes. (Also, the movie keeps referring to "the depression," drawing parallels to the '30s.)
The opening legend calls attention, with deliberate irony, to the fact that some young radicals are questioning "that respectable institution of slavery". Then we see Shirley dancing with black and white street orphans, implying that they are equal in their economic straits. Stepin Fetchit has an important but unbilled role as Frank Morgan's servant (who isn't a slave, but isn't getting paid either). Black servants are shown everywhere, especially at Mrs. Drew's house.
Two plot points are important. The central question is whether Mrs. Drew will "buy" Shirley for $5000, and the characters go back and forth on this question. On the night of the debut of the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" play, Mrs. Drew arrests Frank Morgan (in disguise as Uncle Tom). Then while watching Shirley's death scene in the play, where she begs for Uncle Tom to be free, Mrs. Drew "frees Uncle Tom" (letting Morgan go). Shirley converts Mrs. Drew's impulse to "enslave" people.
We see (with historical accuracy) that the play uses white actors in blackface--but in a curious twist, the play closes with a "new entertainment from the South," a minstrel show with the actual black performers (including Fetchit) pretending to be white actors in blackface. These elements make some viewers uncomfortable, but if you can watch critically, it reveals how the movie was attempting at some level to recognize and deal with unpleasant realities of U.S. history and address freedom, equality, and integration in disguise as entertainment. The Hall Johnson Choir appear, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson choreographed the dances.
The opening legend calls attention, with deliberate irony, to the fact that some young radicals are questioning "that respectable institution of slavery". Then we see Shirley dancing with black and white street orphans, implying that they are equal in their economic straits. Stepin Fetchit has an important but unbilled role as Frank Morgan's servant (who isn't a slave, but isn't getting paid either). Black servants are shown everywhere, especially at Mrs. Drew's house.
Two plot points are important. The central question is whether Mrs. Drew will "buy" Shirley for $5000, and the characters go back and forth on this question. On the night of the debut of the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" play, Mrs. Drew arrests Frank Morgan (in disguise as Uncle Tom). Then while watching Shirley's death scene in the play, where she begs for Uncle Tom to be free, Mrs. Drew "frees Uncle Tom" (letting Morgan go). Shirley converts Mrs. Drew's impulse to "enslave" people.
We see (with historical accuracy) that the play uses white actors in blackface--but in a curious twist, the play closes with a "new entertainment from the South," a minstrel show with the actual black performers (including Fetchit) pretending to be white actors in blackface. These elements make some viewers uncomfortable, but if you can watch critically, it reveals how the movie was attempting at some level to recognize and deal with unpleasant realities of U.S. history and address freedom, equality, and integration in disguise as entertainment. The Hall Johnson Choir appear, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson choreographed the dances.
The Opposite Sex
(1956)
Comparisons are odious, but . . .
21 October 2002
This remake of the 1939 film THE WOMEN is slow, witless and glossy, but we might as well note the differences between the versions. The story follows the divorce/remarriage formula that was worn so well in the late 30s and 40s, with wife divorcing husband (never vice versa) only to remarry him, so that divorce isn't condoned.
1) This version is barely a musical, with a handful of numbers presented as realistic performances. In other words, June Allyson plays a singer and her husband Leslie Nielsen is a Broadway producer, and we see samples of their work, but these forgettable numbers have nothing to do with the plot. The characters don't burst into spontaneous song and dance in the middle of dialogue. It's still set in a version of our "real world," not the world of musicals--more's the pity.
2) The '39 version had the gimmick or stunt of having zero male characters on screen. This remake doesn't do that, and therefore is more ordinary.
3) Attitude changes: If I recall the first version correctly, the marriage breaks up over false rumors of the husband's infidelity. In this remake, the rumors aren't false. Nielsen defends himself by saying "She meant nothing to me." That's one modern concession, and the other is that Nielsen goes thru with marriage to the other woman. Therefore, in order for the first marriage to be restored, the 2nd marriage must break irrevocably. And the heroine's fellow divorcees in Reno are depicted in the first film in existential misery, smiling through their tears, their raucous attitude covering sadness. In the remake, the serial divorcees are rewarded with seemingly happy lives and new boyfriends. So divorce does solve a few problems.
1) This version is barely a musical, with a handful of numbers presented as realistic performances. In other words, June Allyson plays a singer and her husband Leslie Nielsen is a Broadway producer, and we see samples of their work, but these forgettable numbers have nothing to do with the plot. The characters don't burst into spontaneous song and dance in the middle of dialogue. It's still set in a version of our "real world," not the world of musicals--more's the pity.
2) The '39 version had the gimmick or stunt of having zero male characters on screen. This remake doesn't do that, and therefore is more ordinary.
3) Attitude changes: If I recall the first version correctly, the marriage breaks up over false rumors of the husband's infidelity. In this remake, the rumors aren't false. Nielsen defends himself by saying "She meant nothing to me." That's one modern concession, and the other is that Nielsen goes thru with marriage to the other woman. Therefore, in order for the first marriage to be restored, the 2nd marriage must break irrevocably. And the heroine's fellow divorcees in Reno are depicted in the first film in existential misery, smiling through their tears, their raucous attitude covering sadness. In the remake, the serial divorcees are rewarded with seemingly happy lives and new boyfriends. So divorce does solve a few problems.
Two Smart People
(1946)
Signpost to noir
21 October 2002
This obscure B-movie was Jules Dassin's last film before embarking on a series of classic noir and crime films--and actually it's the first of his crime films and shows his interest in developing the genre. As another critic reports in a previous post, this film is NOT a comedy (as Maltin's book describes it) about two con artists mixed up "in art forgery." Actually, it's a crime/road movie about stolen bonds, co-written by the creator of "The Saint." True, Lucille Ball co-stars, and she and John Hodiak meet cute in a TROUBLE IN PARADISE manner, blowing each other's cons with a mutual pigeon. But from the first shot, Dassin reveals his interest in crime
Like Dassin's forgettable comedy A LETTER FOR EVIE, this film is shot by the great Karl Freund, in decline from his silent heyday and not yet arrived at his groundbreaking I LOVE LUCY three-camera period. He gives us expressionist shots aplenty, and such privileged moments as a pan shot with window reflection from outside a train, a cactus-by-moonlight scene, and a chiaroscuro moment when Ball is menaced by Elisha Cook Jr lighting a match. The presence of Cook, Lloyd Nolan, and Hugo Haas (on their way to being entrenched noir icons) also counts for something. The road trip plot (on a train) allows stops in Mexico and New Orleans. The last third (set at Mardi Gras) is suspenseful and colorful, with Cook in fool's motley.
In conclusion, if this 1946 film doesn't hold up as well as Dassin's later, truer noirs, we can still see it's an early step in the development of that genre.
Like Dassin's forgettable comedy A LETTER FOR EVIE, this film is shot by the great Karl Freund, in decline from his silent heyday and not yet arrived at his groundbreaking I LOVE LUCY three-camera period. He gives us expressionist shots aplenty, and such privileged moments as a pan shot with window reflection from outside a train, a cactus-by-moonlight scene, and a chiaroscuro moment when Ball is menaced by Elisha Cook Jr lighting a match. The presence of Cook, Lloyd Nolan, and Hugo Haas (on their way to being entrenched noir icons) also counts for something. The road trip plot (on a train) allows stops in Mexico and New Orleans. The last third (set at Mardi Gras) is suspenseful and colorful, with Cook in fool's motley.
In conclusion, if this 1946 film doesn't hold up as well as Dassin's later, truer noirs, we can still see it's an early step in the development of that genre.
Strangler of the Swamp
(1945)
Foggy chiller dredges deep pools
21 October 2002
Frank Wisbar is one of the more overlooked directors who came to Hollywood from Nazi Germany. He worked at the Poverty Row studio PRC and went back to Germany after the war. At PRC he made such curiosities as DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER and this little item, which actually remakes his own 1936 German film.
It's confined almost entirely to a foggy swamp (with some indoor scenes). The theatrical, atmospheric first act includes a striking scene of three old women standing like statues on the ferry, intoning their dire warnings as it goes back and forth, guided by the ferryman who is responsible for dooming the village. Wisbar evokes Greek mythology (Charon, who ferries people across the Styx; the Three Fates). The camera pans back and forth with the ferry of old people, underlining the stagnation, the fact that no one is going anywhere.
When the young heroine comes into the picture, she seems a breath of fresh air. But with her independent attitude in assuming the job of ferryman (inherited from her dad), she doesn't seem to realize that she too is going nowhere and may be doomed. Another breath of fresh air is the fact that her heroic young fiancee (Blake Edwards) can do nothing to rescue her, but on the contrary she must save him and the rest of the village from "the sins of the fathers." When you place this fable in its original context of Weimar cinema (its preoccupation with sins of authority figures and the previous generation) and the new threat of Hitler, you can see where Wisbar is coming from.
It's confined almost entirely to a foggy swamp (with some indoor scenes). The theatrical, atmospheric first act includes a striking scene of three old women standing like statues on the ferry, intoning their dire warnings as it goes back and forth, guided by the ferryman who is responsible for dooming the village. Wisbar evokes Greek mythology (Charon, who ferries people across the Styx; the Three Fates). The camera pans back and forth with the ferry of old people, underlining the stagnation, the fact that no one is going anywhere.
When the young heroine comes into the picture, she seems a breath of fresh air. But with her independent attitude in assuming the job of ferryman (inherited from her dad), she doesn't seem to realize that she too is going nowhere and may be doomed. Another breath of fresh air is the fact that her heroic young fiancee (Blake Edwards) can do nothing to rescue her, but on the contrary she must save him and the rest of the village from "the sins of the fathers." When you place this fable in its original context of Weimar cinema (its preoccupation with sins of authority figures and the previous generation) and the new threat of Hitler, you can see where Wisbar is coming from.
The Invisible Boy
(1957)
Grown-ups just don't understand
8 August 2002
This little picture has its moments of pulp poetry. There are not one, but two intelligent machines. One is a supercomputer that's been biding its time for decades, waiting for an opportunity that arrives one day in the form of a lonely little boy. He is invisible in the sense that the grown-ups pay no attention to him, condescend to him, or talk over his head--they just don't understand! When he becomes literally invisible later, it's just a way of literalizing what the movie has already been saying.
Anyway, the computer hypnotizes the boy and gives him instructions about putting together a robot that's lying disassembled in a workroom. It's all part of the evil plan to use boy and robot in a plot to take over the world via satellite.
The best moment comes when the insidious computer, invented by the boy's father, flashes all his lights and promises that they can explore the universe together. "Dad--" the boy starts to complain. "Just be quiet, son," says Dad, "and look at all the pretty lights." Man spellbound by his own invention, even unto his own destruction, and taking his future generations with him . . . .
Anyway, the computer hypnotizes the boy and gives him instructions about putting together a robot that's lying disassembled in a workroom. It's all part of the evil plan to use boy and robot in a plot to take over the world via satellite.
The best moment comes when the insidious computer, invented by the boy's father, flashes all his lights and promises that they can explore the universe together. "Dad--" the boy starts to complain. "Just be quiet, son," says Dad, "and look at all the pretty lights." Man spellbound by his own invention, even unto his own destruction, and taking his future generations with him . . . .
One Way Passage
(1932)
a quick comparison (SPOILERS)
29 July 2002
Warning: Spoilers
I recently saw Edmund Goulding's excellent 40s remake 'TIL WE MEET AGAIN, and then saw this original version of the same story directed by Tay Garnett. They are very close; here are the differences I noticed.
1) Both have very stylish opening scenes. This 30s version opens with such a tour-de-force (including a trio of harmony singers with one wonderfully dykey dame), I thought the movie was going to be another display of elaborate camera moves like Garnett's "Prestige," but it settles down after that. Goulding's version gets more quickly to introducing our hero.
2) The 40s version is longer, and the extra material comes on the heroine's side of the melodrama, with a gallery of supporting characters who are in on her secret, echoing the hero's supporting cast. In retrospect, this lends balance that the 30s version doesn't have; Garnett focuses more squarely on the man and makes the woman more a part of his story rather than having them cross into each other's lives.
3) Some details might have to do with pre-Code films vs. Production Code era. The 30s version doesn't bother to claim our hero is innocent of the murder charge (Frank McHugh only says the rat deserved it!), while I thought the latter version implies he might be (which, interestingly, means there could be a miscarriage of justice--something the Code frowns upon).
4) 30s version has misplaced comedy relief in the overplaying of the drunken cohort (played by McHugh in both versions, but in the first version he's constantly emitting high-pitched giggles and falling into mirrors, even though he's supposedly a smooth thief). The 30s cop (Warren Hymer) is made out something of a mug who forever does double-takes at minor witticisms--not exactly convincing us he's the toughest bulldog in Frisco. Pat O'Brien is more convincing in the 40s version, which throws the comedy relief where it does the most good--on Eric Blore as the Countess' chump (a character almost absent from the first version.)
5) The cop and the countess: In the 30s version, the Countess gets the bullets out of the cop's gun not by getting him drunk, but with a silent pan to an unmade bed and a tie hanging on a chair, which has a different implication entirely. There's a pre-Code touch! Also, the 30s cop doesn't let on that he finds out about her past, but implies he's quitting the force to marry her, while the later version has him as such a straight arrow that he lectures her on the empty road she's traveling.
Both are worth seeing. Overall, I slightly prefer the 40s version; it leaves one with a more complete sense of devastated characters, so the ending (identical in both) packs a punch that's somehow both tough and sappy.
1) Both have very stylish opening scenes. This 30s version opens with such a tour-de-force (including a trio of harmony singers with one wonderfully dykey dame), I thought the movie was going to be another display of elaborate camera moves like Garnett's "Prestige," but it settles down after that. Goulding's version gets more quickly to introducing our hero.
2) The 40s version is longer, and the extra material comes on the heroine's side of the melodrama, with a gallery of supporting characters who are in on her secret, echoing the hero's supporting cast. In retrospect, this lends balance that the 30s version doesn't have; Garnett focuses more squarely on the man and makes the woman more a part of his story rather than having them cross into each other's lives.
3) Some details might have to do with pre-Code films vs. Production Code era. The 30s version doesn't bother to claim our hero is innocent of the murder charge (Frank McHugh only says the rat deserved it!), while I thought the latter version implies he might be (which, interestingly, means there could be a miscarriage of justice--something the Code frowns upon).
4) 30s version has misplaced comedy relief in the overplaying of the drunken cohort (played by McHugh in both versions, but in the first version he's constantly emitting high-pitched giggles and falling into mirrors, even though he's supposedly a smooth thief). The 30s cop (Warren Hymer) is made out something of a mug who forever does double-takes at minor witticisms--not exactly convincing us he's the toughest bulldog in Frisco. Pat O'Brien is more convincing in the 40s version, which throws the comedy relief where it does the most good--on Eric Blore as the Countess' chump (a character almost absent from the first version.)
5) The cop and the countess: In the 30s version, the Countess gets the bullets out of the cop's gun not by getting him drunk, but with a silent pan to an unmade bed and a tie hanging on a chair, which has a different implication entirely. There's a pre-Code touch! Also, the 30s cop doesn't let on that he finds out about her past, but implies he's quitting the force to marry her, while the later version has him as such a straight arrow that he lectures her on the empty road she's traveling.
Both are worth seeing. Overall, I slightly prefer the 40s version; it leaves one with a more complete sense of devastated characters, so the ending (identical in both) packs a punch that's somehow both tough and sappy.
Love
(1927)
Hurray for happy endings!
29 July 2002
Warning: Spoilers
(Possible SPOILERS) I'm glad to see this forgotten film receiving praise here from fans; I echo Silntfan's sentiments about Gilbert--this is the movie that made me suddenly realize he was a good actor. He didn't seem like the same actor from "Flesh and the Devil" and "A Woman of Affairs." My favorite silent Garbo film is still the light, stylish "The Kiss," but "Love" impressed me greatly.
By the way, various sources (Maltin's book, the TCM host) claim this 1927 version is "modern". Yet it's set in Czarist Russia, which is not modern for 1927! In fact, nothing in the film indicates it's not a 19th Century setting--they don't drive cars, they don't go to movies, they don't have telephones, etc. You might argue that Garbo's fashions are modern, but that just means they're anachronistic for the Czarist era, not that the whole setting is modern. What's really modern is the ending, and that's what I want to praise.
It came as a breathtaking shock to me, since I had no prior knowledge of it. The TCM print ends with a happy resolution. Then we see a notice that this was the American ending, and next comes the tragic ending shown in Europe. This film's tragic ending of Anna K (well-known) is abrupt and unconvincing (unlike every other scene in this film, so well-directed by Edmund Goulding).
At the risk of being a literary heretic, I must say the happy ending is better! I know we're supposed to sneer at Hollywood's desecration of great literature, and we're supposed to be swept up in the romantic tragedy of sacrifice, how noble or self-pitying it is. But frankly, the classic ending is a revolt against reason. In fact, it's a conventional moralistic punishment for a supposedly strong heroine. The happy ending, in which people actually behave with sense, is subversive because Anna gets to have her adulterous beefcake and eat it too. Call it a crass commercial decision if you will, but it's exactly what Tolstoy couldn't have published in the 19th Century, and what Hollywood couldn't have done after the Production Code crackdown in 1934--which is probably as much why the 1935 remake is tragic as any special allegiance to Tolstoy. The high 20s was the right window to tell the story sensibly.
By the way, various sources (Maltin's book, the TCM host) claim this 1927 version is "modern". Yet it's set in Czarist Russia, which is not modern for 1927! In fact, nothing in the film indicates it's not a 19th Century setting--they don't drive cars, they don't go to movies, they don't have telephones, etc. You might argue that Garbo's fashions are modern, but that just means they're anachronistic for the Czarist era, not that the whole setting is modern. What's really modern is the ending, and that's what I want to praise.
It came as a breathtaking shock to me, since I had no prior knowledge of it. The TCM print ends with a happy resolution. Then we see a notice that this was the American ending, and next comes the tragic ending shown in Europe. This film's tragic ending of Anna K (well-known) is abrupt and unconvincing (unlike every other scene in this film, so well-directed by Edmund Goulding).
At the risk of being a literary heretic, I must say the happy ending is better! I know we're supposed to sneer at Hollywood's desecration of great literature, and we're supposed to be swept up in the romantic tragedy of sacrifice, how noble or self-pitying it is. But frankly, the classic ending is a revolt against reason. In fact, it's a conventional moralistic punishment for a supposedly strong heroine. The happy ending, in which people actually behave with sense, is subversive because Anna gets to have her adulterous beefcake and eat it too. Call it a crass commercial decision if you will, but it's exactly what Tolstoy couldn't have published in the 19th Century, and what Hollywood couldn't have done after the Production Code crackdown in 1934--which is probably as much why the 1935 remake is tragic as any special allegiance to Tolstoy. The high 20s was the right window to tell the story sensibly.
Guilty Hands
(1931)
Riveting
23 July 2002
The opening sequence is stylish, unusual, disorienting. We don't know where we are or what is going on for a few minutes, and that reflects the film's morally disorienting territory. The premise is excellent. Barrymore is not "hammy" but commanding in a very natural way; he's playing a successful lawyer who is used to declaiming his arguments for an audience. The script employs daring ambiguities: we partly want to see the rich man murdered and Barrymore get away with it, yet Barrymore is clearly not a moral character himself, and the woman who insists upon justice for the man she loved is a "tramp" mistress who would have been willing to carry on her affair with the scoundrel after his marriage. What a crew! The magnetism of Barrymore and Francis in their moral contradictions keeps us riveted even through the parts that are like any other old-dark-house mystery. The ending is both preposterous and brilliant. You can look back and see how they set it up, yet it's very difficult to predict!
The Thirteenth Chair
(1929)
Odd editing
9 April 2002
Recently saw this enjoyable little curio on TCM. Adding to the comments of others on the matter of style, I was surprised to notice several examples of short graceful tracking shots forward or back, just to break up the sense of staginess. (The mansion has very smooth floors!) So it's not that the camera is absolutely static. But Browning avoids close-ups for the most part. What was odd is the editing at certain times, which seems way off. There's one bizarre moment when the actors are clearly gathered in preparation for when the director calls "Action," and then after a few seconds, they abruptly begin speaking to each other in mid-sentence. (I'd like to see someone do a whole movie like that!) There's an equally strange edit when Margaret Wycherley walks out of the frame to confront Bela Lugosi (a few steps away), and then we cut to Lugosi sitting in his chair waiting an awfully long time beside dead space for her to walk into frame. I wonder what that was about?
The Cat and the Canary
(1927)
Perhaps the best Old Dark House film.
3 March 2002
I'm a fan of both horror films and silent films, but I didn't have a chance to get around to this one until now--and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Other reviewers have already indicated how well-directed it is, and some have pointed out that the "overacting" is intentional in what was always understood by 1927 audiences as a spoof of the "Old Dark House" genre that was popular on Broadway for much of the decade and spilled onto the movie screen. Once you understand that everyone KNEW these were cliches, you realize there's no reason to take a patronizing attitude. I have to say this is the most satisfying "ODH" film I've seen (not considering actual haunted house films like the first version of "The Haunting"). It has a light touch and almost every shot makes some delightful choice--moving camera, jarring close-up, dutch angle, etc. Director Leni succeeds in making this stage play seem cinematic. One shot has a frightened character speeding through the corridor, apparently on an unseen bicycle! The shot of the body falling down out of a closet onto the camera has been much imitated, both seriously (as in "Public Enemy") and as parody (Warner Bros. cartoons). For a quick comparison, check Roland West's early talkie "The Bat Whispers." Although nothing in "Cat" reaches quite the level of West's most astonishing shots, the film as a whole is more satisfying and less stagey.
The Foreigner
(1978)
Punk D-I-Y movie cannot be dismissed
4 February 2002
A step forward from "Unmade Beds," this black-and-white, semi-improvised movie with late '70s punk elements is obviously influenced by Godard and Warhol (as Amos Poe frankly admits on the DVD commentary). Yes, it has its maddening, amateurish elements (such as bad sound), but it also has something intriguing going on in the photography and in the idea of minimal, "existential" filmmaking. Poe reports that Jim Jarmusch liked this film and it influenced his "Permanent Vacation"--one can see this clearly.
Tormented
(1960)
low-budget cross of Twilight Zone and film noir
16 January 2002
The first thing to notice is the photography of Ernest Laszlo, a veteran of film noir who shot the classic "D.O.A.", "Kiss Me Deadly" and Fritz Lang's "While the City Sleeps." (And the same year "Tormented" came out, he did "Inherit the Wind"!) He elevates this little ghost tale no end, with nice compositions such as the shots through broken lighthouse windows.
Classical ghost stories usually don't have very far to go, and that's probably why there aren't too many of them in American cinema. Someone's haunted, that's it. Such tales are atmosphere-heavy instead of plot-heavy, since motive and outcome are usually obvious. In this case, the atmosphere is a combination of spookiness (with some clumsy effects, and some smooth ones, like the pan shot across the room to reveal the missing LP which has somehow moved to the record player) and the neurotic paranoia of the hero, who reveals himself as trapped a sap as many a noir fool who blames his troubles on a dame. The plot delays and prolongs, but the last act juggles several nice twists. By the end, this cynical little flick has shown more style and imagination than several recent special-effects ghost movies.
Classical ghost stories usually don't have very far to go, and that's probably why there aren't too many of them in American cinema. Someone's haunted, that's it. Such tales are atmosphere-heavy instead of plot-heavy, since motive and outcome are usually obvious. In this case, the atmosphere is a combination of spookiness (with some clumsy effects, and some smooth ones, like the pan shot across the room to reveal the missing LP which has somehow moved to the record player) and the neurotic paranoia of the hero, who reveals himself as trapped a sap as many a noir fool who blames his troubles on a dame. The plot delays and prolongs, but the last act juggles several nice twists. By the end, this cynical little flick has shown more style and imagination than several recent special-effects ghost movies.
Waterloo Bridge
(1940)
Melodrama triumphs over common sense
14 November 2001
Warning: Spoilers
(Possible spoiler) Mervyn LeRoy directed at least two wartime romances that are among the most preposterous melodramas ever made. The second one is "Random Harvest," and its twists and turns are openly bizarre and fantastic. This earlier film (a remake, based on a play by Robert Sherwood) makes more of an effort to disguise the absurdity of its story, yet it's still ridiculous when you really think about it. The whole plot hinges on the idea that two healthy young women descend to prostitution to eat because they can't find any other work--in WWI England! Yes, it's not as though the men had all been drafted; it's not as though the war effort actively recruited and trained nurses, aides and others; it's not as though there were various women's army projects. In reality, war years were probably the only times when unskilled women had no trouble finding jobs, but you'd never know it from this script. Here the war exists only as a convenient device to fool people into thinking that their lovers are dead when they're really coming back later. In other words, the whole premise is idiotic.
However, the fact that this profoundly obvious point doesn't occur to many viewers, or that they put it out of their minds to flow along with the tears and suds, shows how skillful and dedicated are the director, the actors and the other craftsmen in concentrating on emotions that are somehow "true" even if the story that contrives them cannot be. Also, it's beside the point that the Production Code required prostitutes to be punished instead of finding happiness; the fact that Hollywood chooses to tell such a story anyway and lavish all its skill on making Vivien Leigh into a tragic heroine is interesting, almost subversive. In a sense, the movie is really about a more general condition of sacrifice and punishment in society. This stimulating glimpse of truth within a tragedy of sheer unreality is one of the things that make the movie so watchable.
However, the fact that this profoundly obvious point doesn't occur to many viewers, or that they put it out of their minds to flow along with the tears and suds, shows how skillful and dedicated are the director, the actors and the other craftsmen in concentrating on emotions that are somehow "true" even if the story that contrives them cannot be. Also, it's beside the point that the Production Code required prostitutes to be punished instead of finding happiness; the fact that Hollywood chooses to tell such a story anyway and lavish all its skill on making Vivien Leigh into a tragic heroine is interesting, almost subversive. In a sense, the movie is really about a more general condition of sacrifice and punishment in society. This stimulating glimpse of truth within a tragedy of sheer unreality is one of the things that make the movie so watchable.
The Cobweb
(1955)
Neurotic 50s classic awaits rediscovery
6 November 2001
Minnelli's "The Cobweb" explores the fascinating, disturbing idea of a mental institution where the personal quirks of the staff and their families unwittingly have an impact on the patients. In Minnelli's films, his neurotic, lonely, unsettled characters always lead to some climactic nightmarish outburst (even the musicals), but here the whole movie is really a neurotic outburst. Amazingly, it all snowballs out of seemingly the most trivial decision: the new draperies.
What's interesting is that there is no antagonist; like "Howards End" or Eastwood's "Unforgiven", all the characters do bad things for understandable reasons and thus construct the cobweb. This compares favorably with other nuthouse movies, especially ones about the group therapy system--"Cuckoo's Nest" (based on Ken Kesey's novel of 1950, 5 years before "Cobweb") and "The Caretakers" with Joan Crawford as the inflexible head nurse. Those films tend to focus on patients having hysterics and running riot. They don't indict the system but one despotic individual within it (a head nurse); Kesey's narrator claims that she represents a larger controlling force but even then shows that other wards in the hospital are not the same. However, "Cobweb" takes a more subtle nobody's-fault approach that ultimately has wider, darker implications. It implies that these pitfalls are endemic to the system because they are part of human nature, which is a more sinister idea (especially for the 50s) than being able to blame a convenient mini-Hitler. Therefore, it works more convincingly as a microcosm of a society that thinks it's healthy. It's also more salutary and hopeful than those films because it proceeds from this clear-eyed cautionary assessment.
In the true sense of "melodrama," it underlines apparently innocuous early scenes with heavy foreboding music by Leonard Rosenman. It's also astonishing to watch Lillian Gish play a b----. And she does a great job.
What's interesting is that there is no antagonist; like "Howards End" or Eastwood's "Unforgiven", all the characters do bad things for understandable reasons and thus construct the cobweb. This compares favorably with other nuthouse movies, especially ones about the group therapy system--"Cuckoo's Nest" (based on Ken Kesey's novel of 1950, 5 years before "Cobweb") and "The Caretakers" with Joan Crawford as the inflexible head nurse. Those films tend to focus on patients having hysterics and running riot. They don't indict the system but one despotic individual within it (a head nurse); Kesey's narrator claims that she represents a larger controlling force but even then shows that other wards in the hospital are not the same. However, "Cobweb" takes a more subtle nobody's-fault approach that ultimately has wider, darker implications. It implies that these pitfalls are endemic to the system because they are part of human nature, which is a more sinister idea (especially for the 50s) than being able to blame a convenient mini-Hitler. Therefore, it works more convincingly as a microcosm of a society that thinks it's healthy. It's also more salutary and hopeful than those films because it proceeds from this clear-eyed cautionary assessment.
In the true sense of "melodrama," it underlines apparently innocuous early scenes with heavy foreboding music by Leonard Rosenman. It's also astonishing to watch Lillian Gish play a b----. And she does a great job.
The Last Days of Pompeii
(1935)
a few words for the record (some spoilers)
18 October 2001
Warning: Spoilers
I just saw this film recently and found it absorbing enough as a kind of Judeo-Roman kitschy melodrama, which argues that only bad people are punished by volcanic eruptions. (Please enjoy the final scene where the spirit of Preston Foster communes with a double-exposure of "the Master" while a heavenly choir sings). Basil Rathbone is a pleasant figure but it cannot be said that there's anything subtle about his Pontius Pilate, with his heavy shrugs and sighs and his "I wonder" and "What is truth?"; his style is just as "big" as Preston Foster but he carries it off better because he's a more attractive presence. Anyway, we should point out two things. First, this is NOT based on Bulwer-Lytton's novel; not that it's better or worse for it, but even B-L didn't claim that the eruption in 79 A.D. happened only about 10 years after the Crufixion. Second, Willis O'Brien's special effects are not terribly impressive even "for the time." The recently released video of the 1913 Italian version is at least as convincing and maybe more so. This 1935 version is content to mostly have a lot of flying debris as people run for their lives. There is one carefully stiff, transparently processed "lava shot" as people jump into the sea. The major visual spectacle during the disaster--the collapse of a giant statue--is marred by a glaring continuity error. First we see the statue crack in two across the abdomen (well above the discreetly place sword) and begin to fall, and then we cut to a close-up of the falling torso, now completely intact but with the head coming off. There was no reason for that mistake. So the long-awaited spectacle is not what it's cracked up to be.
Thunderbirds Are GO
(1966)
puppet dreams...
14 August 2001
Gerry & Sylvia Anderson created several British children's series in Supermarionation (electronic puppets and models). Later they made "UFO" and "Space 1999." Their live-action series are criticized for being illogical, unscientific, and emphasizing effects over characters, who are invariably regarded as being just as plastic as the marionettes. Judging by this widescreen feature based on "Thunderbirds," the Andersons' whole bag is not only to foreground the effects by which the series is made, but actually to fetishize hardware and gadgetry. Whole sequences consist of nothing but the launching of planes or the workings of machinery, with many smooth rotary motions and blasts of exhaust. Virtually all communications are via monitors and microphones--even when characters are in the same room! For example, there is a round table conference where the leader makes announcements and then submits things to a vote without discussion. Everyone presses buttons in front of them and the results are tabulated on a light board. Talk about technology over character! Everyone is reduced to a flashing light for "no" or "yes." What about the "press conference" where the pilots and the press sit on opposite sides of the room, and have precisely timed interviews via individual phones on their desks, thus eliminating messy humanism. Everyone speaks through very formal technical lingo and the heroes sign off with "F-A-B!" But then there's the gratuitous musical dream sequence of one of the interchangeable puppet sons who work for their father at the Thunderbird station; with songs by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, it reveals his lonely fears and desires. Even puppets have neuroses, but he keeps it bottled; in personal interaction it only just ripples into a testy snit. The Anderson shows reflect the same personality: a strange, hermetic mix of the dramatically dull and compellingly artificial. The end credits say these characters don't exist--yet. Or do they?
Ocean's Eleven
(1960)
Take another gander at the dames...
8 June 2001
In several ways, not quite what I expected. For one thing, although it's an early example of the comic heist movie, most of the time it never tries be very funny. There are some witty or racy zingers tossed off in the dialogue, but most of the comedy comes from Akim Tamiroff's dyspepsia and befuddlement at the behavior of Danny Ocean (Sinatra), and that element just doesn't work. Red Skelton's cameo is hardly a howler either. Most of the situations and dialogue are surprisingly serious, especially between men and women, and also as the guys look back ruefully on how they haven't made much of their lives since the war.
It's been said that women are decorative background characters in a misogynistic film (see the scene of Dean Martin's massage), but what surprised me is how serious most of the "dames" are. They are mostly depicted as the grown-ups to the men's children, not as infantile themselves. (I'm not counting the cameo by Shirley MacLaine, Sinatra & Martin's co-star from "Some Came Running," although she injects that hint of pathos into her patented hooker character.) Angie Dickinson adds nothing to the film's often non-existent plot, but she comes across as a smart, weary woman who's long since given up on Danny and isn't waiting for him any more, in contrast with the bitter Adele character, who resents being dumped by Danny once the good times are over. (Adele is possessive and insecure and resents the fact that Danny expects her to act like an adult who had her eyes open the whole time, and he's dismissive when she doesn't; she's really responding to the contempt with which she thinks he's unceremoniously dumped her, but it's a misunderstanding he doesn't bother to explain. He really hasn't dumped her, she just jumped to the conclusion when she spotted Angie.) Most importantly, Angie and Frank are NOT engineered by the script into re-uniting and you sense that's never in the cards--which is mature for 1960 Hollywood. This also mirrors the situation between Richard Conte's character and the wife who felt compelled to divorce him because she's facing adult responsibilities.
The other example is Peter Lawford's mother, a wealthy matron approaching her third marriage. She is not at all a dominating woman, only an accommodating one. He never sees her unless he wants money, and she asks nothing of him. Lawford resents the fact that he lives off her, but that's his decision. When we see her, we like her. She sees her son and her new husband clearly. Her last scene is where she expresses her hurt and disappointment with him over his behavior--and she's right! In other words, she is never some screeching, unflattering mother stereotype.
It's been said that women are decorative background characters in a misogynistic film (see the scene of Dean Martin's massage), but what surprised me is how serious most of the "dames" are. They are mostly depicted as the grown-ups to the men's children, not as infantile themselves. (I'm not counting the cameo by Shirley MacLaine, Sinatra & Martin's co-star from "Some Came Running," although she injects that hint of pathos into her patented hooker character.) Angie Dickinson adds nothing to the film's often non-existent plot, but she comes across as a smart, weary woman who's long since given up on Danny and isn't waiting for him any more, in contrast with the bitter Adele character, who resents being dumped by Danny once the good times are over. (Adele is possessive and insecure and resents the fact that Danny expects her to act like an adult who had her eyes open the whole time, and he's dismissive when she doesn't; she's really responding to the contempt with which she thinks he's unceremoniously dumped her, but it's a misunderstanding he doesn't bother to explain. He really hasn't dumped her, she just jumped to the conclusion when she spotted Angie.) Most importantly, Angie and Frank are NOT engineered by the script into re-uniting and you sense that's never in the cards--which is mature for 1960 Hollywood. This also mirrors the situation between Richard Conte's character and the wife who felt compelled to divorce him because she's facing adult responsibilities.
The other example is Peter Lawford's mother, a wealthy matron approaching her third marriage. She is not at all a dominating woman, only an accommodating one. He never sees her unless he wants money, and she asks nothing of him. Lawford resents the fact that he lives off her, but that's his decision. When we see her, we like her. She sees her son and her new husband clearly. Her last scene is where she expresses her hurt and disappointment with him over his behavior--and she's right! In other words, she is never some screeching, unflattering mother stereotype.
The Caretakers
(1963)
not serious but interesting
27 May 2001
It's difficult to take this film seriously because the script and characterizations are so shallow, but the visual sense is often very gripping. For example, the opening scene of Polly Bergen breaking into hysterics in a movie theatre as she wanders in front of the screen is a GREAT visual idea, but Bergen's performance of "madness" looks ludicrous. The film, without quite knowing it, is really all about how society victimizes women by making them "crazy" or diagnosing them as such if they stray out of line. Therefore, the nuthouse aspect is best seen as a metaphor, because it's hard to take seriously the valiant understanding doctor with new-fangled ideas about group therapy, or Joan Crawford as bitter resentful head nurse with big eyebrows and very tight face. Watch it for the camera work and the subtext.
Don't Bother to Knock
(1952)
Monroe fans will want to see this
27 May 2001
Warning: Spoilers
What's interesting about this movie is that it's so disturbing. Considered a minor film in Monroe's canon, it's uncomfortable to watch now that we're so saturated with information about her unhappy life. She plays a woman who's had a nervous breakdown because she tried to escape a miserable family life by falling for a young fighter pilot. They had sex in a hotel before marriage, then he went away and got killed in the war and she tried to slash her wrists. So her folks put her away in a funny farm, and now she's come out to live in the city with her uncle, who reminds her of her unsympathetic, impatient parents. That's dark territory for Monroe, and you can't help wondering what she thought of the role. In any case, it's rather uncanny to watch her breaking down. She abuses the girl she is babysitting by tying her up, and at one point she says tellingly about the crying girl "They stop if you ignore them." We are left to conclude that this is how she herself has been treated. In a later speech to the girl, she identifies herself and her goals with the girl and her goals. "We can all get what we want and live happily ever after, understand?" But she does not play a psychopath, as her role is so often described. In the opinion of Widmark, whose character matures and deepens through his encounter with her, she's just a mixed-up girl who "would never have hurt that kid." Although Widmark has a soberly happy ending, Monroe does not.
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