Review - Zaza (1923)

July 26, 2019

Zaza – US, 1923

When I first saw Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, a film that frequently appears on lists of the top 100 American films of all time, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was a film that was essentially about deception and greed. Think about it. Marilyn Monroe’s dream man is wealthy and has a yacht, Tony Curtis, after learning this while in disguise as a woman, then engages in a little more trickery by masquerading as a wealthy yacht owner. Meanwhile, his partner in fraud starts being just as materialistic by entertaining the advances of a millionaire he clearly doesn’t love, all in the name of achieving security. I found it hard to laugh, and even though I’ve had the film in my collection for a few years now, I haven’t been able to convince myself to give it a second try.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the characters are not entirely likable, for who really wants someone to succeed in finding “love” under these circumstances. In the end, Some Like It Hot rewards the very qualities that are loathed in countless other films, films in which love is portrayed as superseding evils such as classism. In fact, Monroe herself made one such film, How to Marry a Millionaire, in which she, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable announce their plans to marry rich in the first scene and then spend the rest of the film learning that the pursuit of financial security may prevent you from seeing that Mr. Right Enough is standing in front of you. The characters openly talk about the changes they’re going through and the decisions they make, and in the end, they are better people. In Some Like It Hot, no one learns anything. The guy gets the girl, and the girl doesn’t care that she was lied to. Even Lemmon’s character has the option of being pampered for life.

I mention these two films because Allan Dwan’s 1923 film Zaza makes many of the mistakes of Some Like It Hot while denying its characters any of the soul-searching and growth found in How to Marry a Millionaire. Its central character is Zaza (Gloria Swanson), the star attraction of a music hall in France. Just why she is so popular is a mystery, for the only thing we see her do onstage is swing on a giant swing and toss her shoes to patrons who all have one thing on their minds. Adding to Zaza’s peculiarities is the fact that she is one of the biggest divas to ever appear on the silver screen. She abuses her maid, hurls insults at anyone who gets in her way, attempts to sabotage a rival’s act, and, in one scene, violently goes after a fellow performer, nearly stripping her in the process. These early scenes hardly establish her as a character we root for to get her man.

Zaza is being pursued by a duke, but she has her heart set of winning Bernard Dufresne (H.B. Warner), a French official who has a habit of showing up just before her act and leaving shortly after. Now normally when a movie presents us with a scenario such as this one, we start to see a bratty character differently through exchanges with a loved one. Therefore, we expect Bernard to bring out the best in Zaza, and that when he does, we will come to see her behavior in earlier scenes as a survival technique and not reflective of the real her. Not so here. There is never a moment in which Bernard explains what he sees in Zaza, and nary a moment in which the two of them do much conversing at all. Sure, he fawns over her, she dotes on him, and they steal quick kisses, and all of that hints at a connection. Alas, it is simply never convincing. In fact, after Zaza is injured onstage and her knight in shining armor flies to her rescue, she makes her maid promise not to tell him that she is better. See, he might leave, and she wants to keep him there as long as possible – even under false pretenses.

There is a transformation in the second half, yet it comes across as half-hearted, mostly because we are expected to just take the film’s word that Zaza just wakes up one day and decides to be a better person. Sure, there’s a nice scene in which Zaza makes up with her former rival, and a scene in which she meets a young girl who confirms a heartbreaking truth, but having spent half the film seeing example after example of Zaza’s bombastic and unhinged persona, it’s hard to accept such a sudden change. And because the film spends so little time exploring the feelings between Zaza and Bernard, their eventual reunion, seven years and one World War later, lacks the emotional pull that it requires.

As Zaza, the normally reliable Swanson is all over the place, and her manic persona hurts the first half of the film, especially when every other member of the cast seems to be avoiding the physical excesses that are sometimes found in silent films. She tones it down in the second half of the film, and these scenes work better. I felt that I was seeing a real person, rather than an overly-excessive persona. As Bernard, Warner does a decent enough job, but, then again, not much is expected of him other than looking conflicted, ashamed, and forlorn.

By the end of the film, I still had no clue what he saw in her – other than sheer physical attraction. And there’s nothing wrong with that, all long as we’re clear that that’s what is intended, Here, alas, we are disappointed. We are meant to see Zaza and Bernard are having a love so strong that is could stand a long separation and years of no communication. In other words, we are supposed to be see their love as one that is pure and meant to be. What this really means, though, is that greed and a focus on the superficial win out in the end, and that’s hardly a message worth celebrating. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)

2 stars

Review - Manhandled

November 2, 2018

Manhandled – US, 1924

The title of Allan Dwan’s 1924 film Manhandled has a double meaning. The literal definition is handled roughly by dragging or pushing, and we get a good sense of this in the film’s opening scene. I believe, however, that word is intended to conjure up a different image, one that would have been easily understood even back in the supposedly simpler days of the 1920s, that of a woman handled roughly by men who think that wealth and power give them such privileges. It is a sentiment that unfortunately still exists in many countries today.

The title also of course suggests a drama, for what comedic moments could one honestly expect from a movie with such a scenario as its central plot? It came as a pleasant surprise then that Dwan devotes much of the first quarter of the film to making his audience laugh. These moments document the daily struggles that a young lady named Tessie McGuire (Gloria Swanson) endures during her commute home, and the results are side-splittingly amusing. We witness the pushing, the shoving, and the jostling that riders must put up with, yet we see them through the lens of a slapstick comedy. Hats get stepped on, belongings get dropped, and for some time, Tessie finds herself stuck between two men’s armpits. Oh, the indignity. However, my favorite part of the scene is a clever bit in which Tessie gets her arms stuck in the other men’s arms, and because of the two men’s height, finds herself levitating between them. It’s an excellent bit, and it reinforces my view of her as a comic wonder.

For here, though, the film turns somewhat dark. We get a sense of Tessie’s longing for an escape from the daily drudgeries of the department store she works at. To make matters worse, her boyfriend, Jimmy Hogan, a mechanic by day and taxi driver by night, is so busy that he can’t find time to take her dancing. In one of the film’s best moments, Tessie grabs a ukulele, yet can’t summon the joy to play it. She just sits there, her face swelling with disappointment and despair. All Jimmy can do is promise to take her to the movies the following night. Additional frustrations, though, lead Tessie to accept an invitation to a party fully of upper-class playboys, the last place that a decent woman like her should be.

What follows provides a good example of both the toxic nature of the playboy lifestyle and its enticing allure. We see the joviality, the blatant flaunting of Prohibition, and the confidence boost that comes with appearing in your best outfit. Swanson also makes us understand the appeal of moving up in class. Her face practically lights up in the presence of so many rich admirers, even though pleasing them seems to involve more than a little bit of self-mockery on Tessie’s part.

Manhandled, or at least what survives of it, is just over sixty minutes long, and so it is inevitable that it will have to pick up the pace in order to reach its predictable conclusion. That it does so in a way that casts all of her affluent suitors in the same light and renders them indistinguishable for one another is a mistake, though. Scenes fly by with little in the way of narration to explain where Tessie is, who she’s with, and why she chose to accept his invitation. Eventually all of them reveal themselves to be cads in similar ways, and this is less interesting not because the world is not full of them, but because, ironically, we saw it coming much earlier in the film, and this makes what follows an affirmation of our predictions, not a discovery. I could also quibble with the way the film devotes so little time to fleshing out Jimmy’s character. Sure, he’s romantic and hard-working, yet he’s also whatever the film needs him to be without establishing that it is in his nature to be so many things.

By the end of the film, Manhandle has gone in the direction it had to and ticked off all the boxes of a film of this sort – misunderstanding, competition, rejection, reunification. This does not mean the film is not worth watching, of course, only that the potential demonstrated by those opening moments on the train home are never quite equaled. The comedy we are teased evaporates and becomes a drama, and characters that we think are up to no good prove to be just that. And if only it were so easy to go from average joe to millionaire in one day.

Still, I enjoyed the film for Swanson’s performance. The beginning of the film demonstrates her superb comic skills, the rest her dramatic chops. I also admired the way she physically alters the way she walks and acts when she is playing the role of a Russian countess. Swanson was a revelation, and I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity to witness that for myself. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)

3 stars

Review - Stage Struck

October 5, 2018

Stage Struck – US, 1925

The world has always had celebrities, but one look at the walls in Orme Wilson’s room is all it takes to know just how much had changed from the days when there were only local theatrical productions and occasional traveling performers. Sure, there have always been nationally known singers and actors, but perhaps never so many at one time. And just what was the effect of these new stars and starlets, with their dashing good looks, hourglass figures, and luxurious attire? Well, probably to create in more than one person an abnormally high level of angst and the recurring thought that you just didn’t stack up to those famous figures in either looks or desirability.

This is the situation that Jenny Hagan (Gloria Swanson) finds herself in in the beginning of Allan Dwan’s Stage Struck. After an entertaining opening scene in which we are privy to Jenny’s private daydreams, ones in which she envisions herself as the most greatest actress to have ever graced the earth, we see the reality - that Jenny has an ordinary job and that the man she loves, the aforementioned Orme Wilson, does not seem to return her affection. He even has a somewhat condescending pet name for her – Mouse.

In one scene, we see her enter Orme’s room and register utter amazement at the sheer number of pictures of actresses that envelop his room. Her envy is all too apparent, and in a cute scene, we see her mimic some of the poses struck in the pictures. It’s as if she saying, “See. I can do that, too.” She stops short, however, at emulating one that is wearing a particularly revealing gown. There are some lines, it seems, that her modesty will not allow her to cross.

The central conflict in the film comes when a show boat named the Water Queen arrives, bringing with it the latest crop of actresses. Orme’s expression could not be more telling. Upon arriving outside the boat, he adopts the aw-shucks look of a teenage boy who’s being flirted with by someone way out of his league. He is the poster child for the boy who’s just happy to be there, and when given a chance to take the hand of the newest leading lady, he is so innocent that he doesn’t pick up on the fact that she is waiting for him to kiss her hand.

So, just what is a woman like Jenny to do? Why, become an actress herself of course. I don’t need to tell you that things don’t quite work out the way she hopes, but the good news for the audience is that they unravel to hilarious effect. Gloria Swanson, known to a generation as the elderly version of Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic, proves to be quite versatile, which is important because the role called for one. Swanson has to be confident and bold in her fantasies, fun and silly in interactions with Orme, and hopeless and lovelorn at times of let-down. She is also called upon to be a shape-shifter, changing herself to such a wide extent that she could very well be the actresses in Orme’s pictures. She adopts a sly, furtive demeanor in a scene in which she tries to sidle alongside Orme and casually take his arm while he is walking with another woman, and then has to play the moment as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. I can understand why in 1925 one critic referred to her as “Chaplin’s nearest rival.” She is that good in the film.

The film falls apart slightly toward the end, as characters begin to reveal motivations that don’t jive with what previously transpired. The introduction of a character who has a peculiar relationship with his drum is ill-advised and unexplored, and the insertion of a female boxing match at the end of the film is slightly off-putting until you recall that boxing was very much a part of traveling circuses. Whether the audience for a rendition of Uncle Tom’s Cabinl would cheer it to the degree that the one in the picture does is debatable. Perhaps the film’s greatest mistake, though, is the insertion of possible physical violence on the part of a character that had up until that moment been a pillar of calm, as well as its use of suicide as a comic device. I suspect neither of these things is likely to strike contemporary viewers as deserving of laughter.

Still, Stage Struck is a mostly a joy to behold. Along with Swanson, we get to see Lawrence Gray in all his splendor – humorous, skilled with a pancake skillet, openly flirting with the young ladies who stand outside the restaurant window to watch him work, and utterly childlike in the presence of a beautiful actress. He and Swanson make quite the cinematic pair. In short, Stage Struck is an excellent introduction to Gray, and it is an absolutely incredible showcase for the immensely talented Gloria Swanson. (on Blu-ray)

3 and a half stars