Review - Dark Journey

October 24, 2013

Dark Journey – UK, 1937

Victor Saville‘s Dark Journey has a promising beginning and a somewhat intriguing final act. It is set in a world of global war, spying and counter-spying, and the constant threat of both discovery and assassination. In other words, it is a film whose brief synopsis or theatrical trailer would likely seem intriguing and dramatic. The actual film, however, is a major letdown – a collection of incoherent spy talk, saddled with a romance that never seems the slightest bit authentic. In fact, it is one of those films in which expressions of love and devotion are more likely to elicit gasps of incredulity instead of sighs of zealous exultation.

The film is about a young businesswoman in Sweden named Madeline Goddard, played by the usually reliable Vivian Leigh. We first meet Madeline in the spring of 1918 on a neutral passenger ship destined for Sweden. The ship is stopped and boarded and its passengers checked for spies. One is arrested, yet Madeline, although arousing the boarding officer’s suspicion, is allowed to continue on after she proves to him that she is indeed bringing with her the latest in French fashion. Back home, Madeline is revealed to be leading a double life: the first as the owner of a clothing store rightly called Madeline’s, and the second as a spy for the British government. Just how she gets secret messages across oceans is one of the film’s few interesting plot points.

A film like this one has very few options. It could focus on Madeline’s life as a spy in a neutral country and all of the perils that come with that assignment. This would involve focusing on her isolation and vulnerability from all sides, in particular, the Swiss government, which aims to remain neutral in the war, and spies from both sides of the conflict, who interpret her friendships with certain Europeans as being cause for suspicion. Or the film could choose to introduce a completely new character and play a version of that old game “Fried or Foe?” Predictably, the film elects to do the latter.

This decision would have been the right one had the character they introduced been either charismatic and handsome or enigmatic and enticing. Instead, screenwriter Lajos Biro gives viewers Baron Karl Von Marwitz (Conrad Veidt). To add an element of doubt as to just who Madeline’s competition is, a second German character enters the country just before the Baron. However, since the film pays very little attention to him after his introduction, it seems logical to assume that viewers should do so as well.

The problem with the Baron is that the character is an utter, lifeless bore, whose means of attracting women seem both amateurish and slightly sexist. To view things from the Baron’s point of view is to view women as playthings, as objects that can be obtained if enough money is spent on them. He has little in the way of personality, and any woman that liked him would some have serious self-examination to do. No matter though, the film rewards the Baron for his lack of personality with a date with Madeline – and apparently her heart, thus playing on the time-honored film stereotype that while male spies can always be trusted to put country first, female spies are handicapped by their emotions and are therefore less reliable. While I’m not in favor of reinforcing stereotypes in general, if you’re going to rely on this one, you have to give the heroine a better adversary than the Baron.

Too little works in Dark Journey to recommend it. Vivian Leigh gives a decent performance, but she is given very little help by the film’s exceptionally subpar script. Some of the film’s most intriguing moments, moments filled with messages being flashed to enemy agents and relayed back to headquarters, brief glimpses of the First World War, and short arguments between Swiss citizens whose countries of ancestry just happen to be at war, are over in a heartbeat. Given much more screen time are incoherent and excruciatingly long scenes involving submarines, torpedoes that never seem to hit their mark, and officers saying entirely unrealistic dialogue. It also doesn’t help that most of the film’s supporting characters speak in the same accent, regardless of whether they are playing German or British characters. In addition, Leigh and Veidt have literally no chemistry, a fatal flaw for a picture of this kind. In fact, it says something that one of the film’s saving graces is its mercilessly-short running time of just 77 minutes. At least, the pain is over relatively quickly. (on DVD and Blu-ray on November 19, 2013 as part of the Vivian Leigh Anniversary Collection)

2 stars

Review - The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

August 1, 2013

Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, The – US, 1961

Doubt is an actor’s enemy. It’s akin to a parasite crawling under your skin and becoming an obsession, an itch that must be scratched, despite the fact that doing so only makes it itch more. Doubt can take over an actor’s thoughts, making him wonder if he’s lost it, if he ever had it in the first place, and what he’ll do if this is truly the twilight of his professional career. It is ideas like these that have begun to consume Mrs. Karen Stone, the forty-five-year-old star of a recently-opened production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. As the film begins, it is intermission, and the audience is already voicing their displeasure. The camera cuts backstage to a nervous Mrs. Stone, whose mid-performance jitters speak volumes. She knows that there is a degree of truth in the scathing words being spoken out in the lobby. Later she calls her husband and tells him she wants to close the show. Without a moment’s hesitation, he suggests that they use his poor health as an excuse, and who knows? Perhaps this was the cause all along.

The two of them head off to Europe for what is meant to be a relaxing vacation, one meant to refresh and refocus Mrs. Stone. It begins, however, with Mr. Stone’s sudden death in mid-flight, the result of a massive heart attack, and the loss causes Mrs Stone to seek self-imposed seclusion in that wonderful place where a princess fell in love with a commoner eight years earlier in William Wyler’s Roman Holiday. In fact, I half expected The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone to eventually become a hybrid of that film and films like How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It doesn’t, however. It would be more truthful to call The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone the anti-Roman Holiday, for nothing the film shows us about Rome would inspire any of the romantic notions that Wyler’s film caused. Quite the opposite, actually.

As depicted in Jose Quintera’s film, Rome is a city of danger, especially for widowed foreign women with money. Young men lounge around on the street, looking for their next target, and young women hang out of street corners, waiting for the next wealthy customer to walk by. It is a city in which a man in the midst of a con can sit and boast of the ruse he is pulling off, and instead of shaking his head in disgust, his barber will shake his head in envy. Part of this is explained in the film’s opening scene, one of film’s weaker moments, for instead of actually showing the vice and sin taking place, the film uses a rather poor dramatic device, a know-it-all narrator who tells the audience how evil Rome is while showing them images of young men either standing around or sleeping on the pavement. It’s not souvenir-photo material, but it is hardly menacing. The narrator is abandoned so quickly that one wonders why he was included at all.

Mrs. Stone is described as being extremely well off and that makes her the target of the Contessa (Lotte Lenya), who makes a living matching wealthy women up with young hustlers. Her standard agreement: They split the spoils 50-50. The Contessa reasons that all Mrs. Stone needs is to be “brought back to life.” And to make this happen sooner than it might normally, she arranges an ostensibly incidental meeting between herself, Mrs. Stone, and a young playboy by the name of Paolo di Leo (Warren Beatty).

What is fascinating about The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is the way that Paulo remains a bit of an enigma, for even as we are given plenty of reason to distrust him, there is a part of us that wants to remain open to the idea that Paulo is what Mrs. Stone wants him to be, or - dare I say - needs him to be. Her husband was twenty years her senior, and there is little in the film to suggest that their marriage had been about love. In one scene, Mrs. Stone’s “dear” friend Meg tells her that it had always seemed to her that Mrs. Stone married “to avoid love.” Mr. and Mrs. Stone never had children, as that would likely have gotten in the way of their careers, and it is not hard to imagine that their relationship lacked the passion and feelings that Mrs. Stone acted out on stage. I would go so far as to say that there is a point in the film at which Mrs. Stone is well aware of the con being perpetrated on her and chooses to ignore it because she needs something from Paulo. Some viewers may interpret this as a need for love and companionship, and perhaps this is what it ends up being, but it seemed to me that Mrs. Stone is after something else. Could it be sex?

One of the things that makes the film work is the way it builds up two versions of events simultaneously. In the first version, there is a cold, calculated con under way, and all we can do is watch as Mrs. Stone slowly succumbs to it. In the second version, what started out as a con may be blossoming into something else right before our eyes. By the end of the film, though, only one interpretation is truly possible. The fun, if you can call it that, is in watching it revealed itself. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is slow and edgy, yet it was certainly a film ahead of its time. (on DVD)

3 and a half stars

Review – Waterloo Bridge (1940)

April 9, 2010

Waterloo Bridge – U.S., 1940

In the opening scene of Mervyn LeRoy’s moving and well-acted 1940 film Waterloo Bridge, a British general named Roy Cronin (Robert Taylor) takes a walk across the Waterloo Bridge, from where, according to Wikipedia, the views are “the finest from any spot at ground level.” His mind, however, is on not Westminster or the South Bank, but a young woman he once knew named Myra (Vivian Leigh). In his mind, he hears the soft, sweet words they spoke that day, words that promised eternal love and everlasting memory. And then, like so many movies before this one and so many since, viewers are transported back in time to that fateful day when the two of the met by chance during an air raid on the Waterloo Bridge. It’s unfortunate that the film begins this way, for one of the film’s most dramatic moments involves Myra believing that Roy has died, a belief that the audience already knows is erroneous.

In flashbacks, we revisit the day Roy and Myra met. He was standing on the bridge, taking in the view, and she was running to find shelter due to the ominous warning of an impending air raid. A simple case of butterfingers later, and he is helping her pick up her things and escorting her to the nearest air raid shelter. Once there, the two of them exchange introductions – he is an officer, and she is a dancer, an occupation that to many of the characters in the film represents an unacceptable level of vulgarity and indecency, despite the fact that she is a part of a touring ballet. We witness Roy and Myra flirt rather harmlessly. He talks about the legs of a dancer, and she shows him hers, just to prove to him that she indeed has no leg muscles. She learns enough about him to recognize his romantic nature; he learns enough about her to comment on her unusual degree of pragmatism. He asks if she minds if he smokes, and she says she doesn’t (What woman in a film from the 1940s or 1950s ever does?). And then the air raid ends. Just as they are beginning their proper good-byes, a cab pulls up and she gets in it. Before it speeds away, Myra gives Roy her good luck charm, for as she explains, he’ll need it more than she will. She laments meeting him for a moment, for doing him has brought the war home for her. Now she knows someone fighting on the front lines and therefore has someone to worry about when she hears about recent battles or casualties. In other words, she cares about him. And then the cab speeds off, perhaps ending their budding romance before it ever really begins.

It doesn’t end right then, of course, and later, as Myra is trying to focus of her pirouettes, she is taken aback by Roy’s late arrival to her performance. In addition, he displays a rather flattering inability to either stop smiling at her or cast his gaze at any of the other beautiful woman dancing on stage. Soon, the two of them are sneaking off to the Candlelight Club, remarking about how far along they are in their relationship, and sharing their first passionate kiss as a big band performs a memorable rendition of "Auld Lang Syne." As the evening winds down, they wonder aloud if their paths will ever cross again. The answer is still an unfortunately realistic no. They say their good byes, and the evening ends. And so does their courtship, right? Absolutely not, for as luck would have it, Roy is granted an additional forty-eight hours of shore leave. This time, though, he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. Fate has brought them together again, and he is determined that it shall never separate them again. Therefore, the only sensible thing for them to do – at least in his mind – is to get married.

If all of this seems rushed, it’s helpful to remember that the film takes place during a time of war, and war sometimes creates a sense of urgency and intimacy that would probably not exist during peace time. In fact, it’s entirely likely that these two characters would have never met under normal circumstances. In light of this, their quick courtship actually makes sense. To them, there are only two possibilities: If Roy does indeed come back, they can be together. If he doesn’t, they have at the very least lived their lives without regret. Unfortunately, neither of them anticipates the events that indeed do unfold.

Waterloo Bridge works well because of the strength of the two lead characters. We admire Roy’s romantic nature and intense commitment to Myra, and we respect Myra for her steadfast refusal to give up on life. That refusal eventually leads her to make some tough decisions, but sometimes survival offers you no other alternative. However, because Roy is still alive, Myra’s actions, as well as the personal sacrifices they entail, can be viewed as unnecessary, as mistakes made by a woman without possession of all the facts. Such an interpretation would likely make us look at her decisions with a sense of regret, as if she could have made a different choice. To me, such an interpretation is unfair, for Myra’s actions demonstrate her persistent determination to get through terrible times. They provide evidence of her inner strength. It is not important whether the decisions she makes are morally correct or not; she does what she must do to survive. I wonder if that would have been clearer had the director omitted the opening scene on the bridge.

Waterloo Bridge is a remake of a James Whale film from 1931. In that version of Waterloo Bridge, Roy Cronin is a rather naïve individual, and Myra is likely the first person for whom he has ever had such strong romantic feelings. In a way, he is like John Wayne’s character in Stagecoach – so inexperienced that he doesn’t pick up on all of the clues pertaining to the profession of the girl he loves. In the updated version, Cronin’s youthful inexperience is gone. Cronin is a man who knows the world and most likely has known love before. His proposal of marriage therefore comes across as somewhat sensible. It helps that Leigh’s Myra is able to be receptive to it, for in the beginning, everything about her is pure. In Whale’s version, Mea Clark’s Myra never really gets the chance to seriously entertain Cronin’s marriage proposal, and she spends the entire movie trying to find a way out of a situation that she really wants to find herself in. Both versions are well done, yet Whale’s version, made before the Hayes Code was enforced, is slightly more challenging for viewers.

What is consistent in both versions is the idea that having premarital sex, regardless of the circumstances, can be emotionally devastating for some women, causing them to view themselves as being unworthy of such noble institutions as marriage and family. In addition, the film portrays this notion as persisting in women despite the reactions of the men that love them. The film seems to be suggesting that a good woman’s conscience will simply not let her live what she considers to be a lie. Did this notion ever exist as strongly as it does in Waterloo Bridge? Perhaps it did. Could Hollywood films have portrayed it any differently? Probably not. Waterloo Bridge is therefore a romantic tragedy, a film about a love that should have been one for the ages but which time was unfortunately not ready to accept. It remains a powerful film. (on DVD)

4 stars