Review - You Never Know Women

 

November 21,2020

You Never Know Women – US, 1926

The 1926 promotional poster for William A. Wellman’s You Never Know Women features the head of Florence Vidor (ex-wife of legendary director King Vidor) looking down upon two men, the first looking rather dapper in a finely pressed three-piece suit, the other donning garb reminiscent of the type worn by squatting and kicking Russian dancers. The implication is that the woman is pulling these men’s strings, manipulating them, perhaps playing them off each other for financial gain or making fools of two would-be suitors. Viewers with this impression might turn on the film expecting a light comedy or a tale of dramatic comeuppance - I know I did, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In the film’s opening scene, Vera Janova (Vidor) a young Russian vaudeville artist on her way to the theatre, is nearly crushed by a falling girder. While she is saved by a quick-acting construction worker, she does not stay conscious long enough to see the face of her hero clearly. Equally quick-footed is Eugene Foster (Lowell Sherman), a millionaire who just happens to witness the near catastrophe. Springing into action, he rushes beside the true hero and tells him, “I think I can do this sort of thing better than you,” before taking the unconscious lady into his own arms and ensuring that his smiling wealthy face is the first she beholds upon regaining her senses. Interestingly, not one person in the crowd surrounding them thinks to inform her of the ruse. Maybe she wouldn’t have believed them anyway. After all, fairy tales tell us damsels in distress are rescued by princes and knights, not blue-collar workers in dirty overalls.

The set-up is perfect, and in the right hands, it would be ample fodder for a screwball comedy about a rich man trying to keep up the pretense of being brave and romantic. In this version of events, Vera would eventually learn the truth and decide to use it to her advantage, thereby justifying the symbolism hinted at by the puppet strings in the promotional material. Instead, Vera, already late for the evening’s performance, dashes off, arriving to find her fellows performers patiently waiting, despite the fact that their waiting makes the audience wait.

There, we are introduced to Ivan Norodin (Clive Brook), acrobat, magician, escape artist, master chef (alright I made that last one up), and one look at him and his attire is enough to know that he’s the other man having his strings pulled on the poster. Unbeknownst to the two of them, Vera has been tailed, and her tailer (is that even a word?) is soon spotted sitting in the audience, looking up (literally) at Vera as she flies around the theatre on wings magically gifted to her by the extremely talented Ivan. If only he had just made Eugene disappear. Soon Eugene’s visiting the theatre nightly, and Ivan’s feeling replaced. Luckily, there’s a musically-inclined, goose-kissing clown (El Brendel) around to try to make Vera see the light.

Wellman’s career was still in its early stages when the film was made (it was his tenth film overall), and so it is easy to surmise that the film was selected for him. He would go on to direct the first Best Picture winner, as well as 1928’s Beggars of Life, The Public Enemy (which made a star of James Cagney), the Depression-era socially conscious films Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys of the Road, the first incarnation of A Star Is Born, and the 1942 masterpiece The Ox-Bow Incident. (That last one alone would be enough to earn him a place on my list of favorite directors.) Those are films in which his detailed directing is in service of excellent scripts, and the result is pure cinematic magic. Here, though, he is saddled with a story that never takes advantage of its vast possibilities. Instead, we get one character brooding, the other scheming, and the third caught in the middle, never fully aware of what is transpiring right before her very eyes. (Again, thank goodness there’s the clown.)

Yet while the narrative gets bogged down in a standard, paint-by-numbers love triangle, the conclusion of which is never in any doubt, Wellman’s depiction of the Vaudevillian world of his characters is lively and enthralling. Performers unmask to reveal additional masks, plates are thrown across a room only to boomerang back to the person who threw them, acrobats tumble, jump, roll . The performers are alive and in constant motion, regardless of whether the action drives the plot or simply occurs in the background. And Wellman’s camera is vibrant as well, in one scene capturing Vera flying above the audience, in another making it seem as if a performer on swaying boxes were about to crash into the audience. He makes you believe you are witnessing a live performance, and the show goes on regardless of the sappy love triangle playing out in the foreground.

So impressive is Wellman’s camerawork that I’m tempted to recommend the film based solely on my esteem for it. And I might have, were it not for the finale. If I understand correctly, a character decides that in order to spare one person a certain kind of pain, he will inflict another potentially more debilitating kind on not just that person but everyone in said person’s inner circle. And if that weren’t bad enough, when he eventually reappears, not a single person holds a grudge. But then again, this is a film in which the most humorous line, I think I can do this sort of thing better than you, is uttered more than once to people who have no incentive to stay silent and still Vera’s misguided illusion is allowed to persist. You know what they say about friends like these. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)

2 and a half stars

*You Never Know Women is a silent film.

Review - Cavalcade

March 26, 2020

Cavalcade – UK, 1933

Unless you’re the director, producer, writer, or star of the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year, the winner matters little in the long run. The most we can hope for is that the victor is a high-quality film that both speaks to the moment and ultimately stands the test of time. At the very least, we hope the winner doesn’t leave us with the notion that the Academy lost their collective mind. At the sixth Academy Awards in 1933, the members of the Academy had to choose between ten films: Cavalcade, A Farewell to Arms, 42^nd Street, I Am a Fugitive of a Chain Gang, Lady for a Day, Little Women, The Private Life of Henry VIII, She Done Him Wrong, Smilin’ Thru, and State Fair. Not having seen most of these, I am not in a position to be able to say which one should have one; however, I’m fairly certain that the best of the nominees was not Frank Lloyd’s Cavalcade, that year’s eventual winner.

Cavalcade is the kind of film that, were it made today, would likely be called Oscar-bait; it’s also the kind of film that usually takes home awards primarily because many Oscar voters seem to appreciate effort over results. In other words, Cavalcade is an attempt at greatness. It is a film made by serious filmmakers and acted in a manner that makes one think that the cast were aware of the potential power of their words and thus delivered them as if they were on stage reciting Shakespeare, and by this, I mean turning to the camera and talking directly to the audience instead of the person they are actually conversing with. The film also has a scope befitting of a great film, and it touches on issues that few could reasonably argue are not worth contemplating for two hours. Alas, there are simply too many of them. The result of this is a pace that often feels rushed. Characters go off to war, only to return victorious ten minutes later. We learn that two characters have fallen in love, only for tragedy to remove them from the picture a few minutes later, and if you think that the film will take a moment to allow the other characters to reflect on their loss, you’d be sorely mistaken. Instead the film just jumps ahead in time to the next tragic period of time.

The film begins on New Year’s Eve in 1899. Our protagonists are a British husband and wife named Robert (Clive Brook) and Jane Marryot (Diana Wynyard) who are tremendously happy. We know because in their first scene, they tell us, which is more often than not an ominous sign. Sure enough, war is imminent. Robert, as well as the family butler, Alfred (Herbert Mundin), is about to be sent to South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War, a duty that neither one of them has any reservations about. Jane hopes the war is over before Robert gets there, but acknowledges that Robert would hate that, and Alfred explains to his wife that England occasionally has to have wars in order to demonstrate who the “top dog” is. Neither of them comes back with a different opinion, though their gung-ho nature has been slightly tempered.

The film’s conscience is Jane. A mother of two, she is horrified by the rapturous reactions that greet the commencement of armed conflict, and if you’re not clear where she stands, just wait. Eventually, she’ll do something to let you know like kicking her children’s toy tanks or wondering aloud just how many of Britain’s sons will come back alive. She is a pacifist in a time of Hawks, and unfortunately the war in South Africa ushers in a century of military clashes, death, technological change, and cultural loss.

Cavalcade has its share of nice moments. In one, Robert is asked by his sons if he killed any Boers, and his reply is a complete reversal of a remark he made prior to leaving for the battlefield. In another, a brass band plays on, and revelries continue despite a man lying dead from a tragic accident, and there’s a sweet moment in which the youngest son, Joey, sneaks backstage to see a childhood friend whose become a singer and accidentally sees her begin to undress. The way he looks away and then tries to exit the room undetected reveals an admirable level of decency and speaks of a more innocent time.

Unfortunately, such moments are undone by a pace that rarely allows the story to breathe. Leaps in time occur suddenly without any discussion of the changes that have taken place in the ensuing years. Some characters are introduced and then discarded; others reappear at an older age, yet the film devotes so little time to them that they don’t resonate. There’s also the film’s annoying habit of telegraphing disaster by having characters discuss how they would accept death because they could never imagine being as happy as they are at that moment. In one scene, a newlywed utters these sentiments before walking off screen, the camera remaining in place to linger on a lifebuoy with the word Titanic on it. Isn’t that convenient?

Soon it’s 1914; then 1918 in a chaotic and ineffective montage of marching troops and falling soldiers; then the Roaring 20's, during which we see a performance of Noel Coward’s “20th Century Blues,” a song that seems appropriate for the film but inappropriate for the venue in which it is sung; and finally New Year’s Eve, 1933, where we see Robert and Jane getting ready to crack open the champagne. The film has come full circle. However, its ending, with its somber reflection on the social impact of World War I and the subsequent cultural decline that occurred in the 1920’s, comes out of nowhere. This is a film that has been about a single family and the tragedies that befall it over the years. The children are generally respectful, and they grow into well adjusted adults. There is no sign of PTSD, and whenever one of them utters a remark that could be seen as slightly classist or egotistical, they quickly see the error of their ways and apologize. In other words, they are not affected by the changes that the film riles against in its final act. Thus, they are the wrong people to deliver a condemnation of 20^th-century life. Actually, they’re proof that not everyone has changed.

Cavalcade is not the worst Best Picture winner. After all, stinkers such as Around the World in 80 Days, An American in Paris, and Midnight Cowboy are much less watchable. And Cavalcade does have some nice moments. Its opening scene, in which its characters celebrate a new year being ushered in with the commencement of a war, is well written and moving. I was also saddened by the fate of Alfred, the only character whom the war seems to have had a psychological impact on, and scenes detailing the aftermath of the First World War, some featuring blind soldiers learning to read Braille and weave baskets and others showing nearly empty churches, are quite effective at conveying the crises that gripped much of the world after the trauma of World War I.

However, too much of the film comes across as manipulative. Instead of letting the audience react to events naturally, characters look straight at the camera and tell viewers what they should be thinking. It’s annoying, and the fact that the makers of Cavalcade resorted to it says a lot about their confidence in the final product. Luckily for them, the Academy came to their rescue, ensuring Cavalcade a place in history, In doing so, however, they did serious damage to its credibility as an authority on quality. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars

Review - Underground (1927)

January 18, 2020

Underworld – US, 1927

Josef von Sternberg’s cinematic career began with the film Underworld, a short, gritty look at the criminal world of the late 1920’s. This is a world that owed much of its existence to the colossal mistake that was Prohibition and which made celebrities out of ruthless gangsters such as Al Capone, which one Hollywood studio even entertained making a film with. (According to legend, they would have, too, had someone on the set that day not made a rather flippant remark about leaving his guns at the door.) Those gangsters, it was believed, were standing up to an oppressive government hell bent on imposing its outdated morals on a society whose only crime was that they had a thirst for alcohol, and so, it is not surprising to see the lead character in Underworld, Bull Weed (George Bancroft), portrayed in a rather pleasant light. Sure, he’s got anger issues and a slight tendency toward homicide, but other than that, he’s the kind of guy you’d have the time of your life with were you to share a booth with him at a bar or restaurant.

In fact, for much of the film, we get a pretty sanitized picture of Bull. He seems to commit robberies on his own, never appears to harm anyone in the process, and is even such a romantic fellow that he robs a jewelry store just so that he can get his hands on a necklace that his girlfriend formed in instant attachment with. I mean, if that isn’t love, what is? We also get a few scenes that reminded me of the dual nature of many of James Cagney’s gangsters. They were surely violent, but on any given day, they could have a heart of gold. In one scene which I seem to recall first seeing in a later Cagney film, Bull comes across a teenager trying to steal an apple from a fruit cart. Bull stops him cold and gives him a stern lecture on the evils of taking what isn’t yours. Then he smiles and eats the apple himself, completely aware of the contradiction. In another scene, his actions bring to mind a certain hero from Sherwood Forest, and then there’s his romantic side. When walking with his girlfriend, Feathers (Evelyn Brent), he remembers that a gentleman always walks on the side of the sidewalk closest to the traffic. At this point in the film, you’d be forgiven for thinking, What a swell guy!

Like von Sternberg does in later films with his muse Marlene Dietrich, here he creates a new and foreboding world down to the last detail. From the dark indistinct side streets to the well lit apartment he shares with Feathers, from the frequent shadows that loom large over figures in the foreground to the way von Sternberg immediately makes the audience aware of Feathers’s unique qualities and remarkable form, every detail contributes to the creation of a world in which love and brotherhood exist alongside rage and chaos. The film’s chief villain is Buck Mulligan, owner of a flower shop by day and ruthless gang leader by night, and the character provides both a contrast and a mirror to Bull. Early one, his quick temper and instant fury is juxtaposed with Bull’s calm, mocking mannerisms, and we can be forgiven for initially seeing them as polar opposites.

Interestingly, much of the film’s drama comes not from the rivalry between Bull and Buck, but from that of Bull and a former lawyer/current drunk nicknamed Rolls Royce (Clive Brook). In an early scene, a variation of which was repeated in the great Rio Bravo, Buck entices Rolls with a ten dollar bill, only to throw it in a spit bowl. His reaction is perfect. Even though he could surely use the money, he just picks up his broom and resumes sweeping the floor. Dignity supersedes financial need. The action perfectly establishes his character, and it provides the impetus for Feathers’s first inquisitive look. Sure, Bull would have done something similar, but he is in a much better financial position. Bull does it out of principle, and that means just a little bit more to her. And thus the flirtation begins.

I wish the film had spent more time developing the connection between Feathers and Rolls Royce. It seemed to me that more was needed that a scene in which she exposes her shoulder and he grins like a freshman seeing flesh for the first time, but in truth movies have rarely been good at establishing bonds that go beyond mutual physical attraction. Perhaps this is why ones that do, such as Before Sunrise, It Happened One Night, and Casablanca, resonate as much as they do. We appreciate a film that takes the time to make a relationship understandable. We root for these couples; we simply tolerate the rest. Alas, the romance in Underworld is a case of the latter, and the film is marginally weaker as a result.

Still, the film impresses and resonates, and its impact on the genre is plain to see. In the film, we see the beginnings of Hollywood’s love-hate relationship with gangsters, the need to make them both personally likeable and professionally despicable. One need look no further than The Sopranos for proof that that dilemma continues to dominate the gangster genre, and while Underworld does not end with the protagonist having been exposed as a failure for not having preserved his morals or protected his family from the hazards of his career choice, it does end in a way that will remind viewers of other films from Hollywood’s early years, ones in which a gangster is never truly without honorable attributes. He just has to find something more valuable than his own life. Once Underground get going, there’s little doubt just what that will be, but what a ride getting there, and what incredible performances. Underground is the kind of film that you marvel at, knowing full well that you are witnessing the arrival of a true master of cinema. (on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Criterion’s box set 3 Silent Classics By Josef von Sternberg, now thankfully back in print)

3 and a half stars

*Underworld is a silent film.

*Writer Ben Hecht won an Oscar for his screenplay at the first Academy Awards.

Review - Shanghai Express

February 7, 2018

Shanghai Express – U.S., 1932

Were I asked to picture a romantic hero, I would likely picture someone vastly different than Captain Donald Harvey. Stoic and emotionally restrained regardless of the scenario presented in front of him, the only clue that he is in love is the watch he carries with him, a gift from the love that got away five years earlier. There is no pause when he is reunited with her by chance, no look in his eyes that betrays the long-restrained emotional pining going on in his heart, no clasp of her hand or shudder at an incidental touch. No, I imagine that, were we to see them, his conversations with his superior officers would bear a striking resemblance to those he has with the woman who broke his heart. Is this off-putting? Slightly, but combined with the slow, milky, somewhat monotone delivery of his great love, it’s more than a little peculiar.  

To be fair, the relationship just referred to is actually one of the least interesting of the many plotlines that run through Josef von Sternberg’s impressively shot monster hit Shanghai Express. Theirs, after all, is a love that must only overcome the stigma that comes with a woman having had what society deemed an unacceptable number of lovers, which I believe at the time was any number above one. Vastly more interesting is the case of Henry Chang (Warner Oland), a pessimistic traveler whose feelings about his parentage are both startling and intriguing. Even more involving is the character of Hui Fei (Anna May Wong), a mysterious young woman who is anything but traditional, yet seems to have a better understanding of both politics and humankind than anyone else on board, with the possible exception of the lady unaffectionately referred to as “Shanghai Lily” (Marlene Dietrich) Fortunately, Chang is given the screen time the character deserves; Hui Fei, unfortunately, is relegated to a scene here and there, speaks little, and, while playing an important role in the film’s climax, remains an enigma till the end.

In Shanghai Express, we follow the passengers of a train bound for Shanghai from modern-day Beijing. It is 1932, and China is in the midst of a Civil War, meaning that even a ride between those two relatively close cities is fraught with peril. In early scenes, we are introduced to a number a passengers – an elderly woman who smuggles a dog onto the train, a French officer who doesn’t speak a word of English, a missionary who refuses to share a cabin with a woman he deems sinful, and the aforementioned captain (Clive Brook), Shanghai Lily, and Chang, among others. Almost immediately, the doctor is reunited with Shanghai Lily. At the same time, we begin to get clues that Henry Chang is more than he lets on. This becomes even more apparent after Chinese soldiers stop the train, search the passengers, and detain one, presumably a member of the resistance. It is then that we see Chang sending a telegram in code - the message: for the recipient to detain the train at all costs.

It could be argued that Shanghai Express is a tale told in three unequal parts. The first part introduces the characters and spends a great deal of time reacquainting the doctor with his former lover. The middle of the film deviates slightly, as the chaos of China’s Civil War comes into focus and it becomes clear just how perilous the journey unfolding onscreen actually is. Like many war zones, location determines the soldiers you have to look out for, and there are frequent skirmishes between armies that seem to have no qualms about putting bystanders in harm’s way. There are frightening interrogations, as well as the ever-present threat of death, and the tension is quite palpable in this part of the film. In the end, however, the film feels compelled to return to the story of separated lovers and answer that infernal question, Will they or won’t they? Well, of course, they will. However, just because we know this doesn’t mean that characters will hasten their own realization of it, and therefore the scene goes on a bit long. As for me, I was more interested in the fate of Hui Fei. Alas, that, like so much else about her, remains untold.

Like many films of the time, it was deemed necessary to sprinkle bits and pieces of comedy throughout, and many of these moments are simply distracting. Just what are we to make of the wealthy elderly woman who shouts for the attendant to take care of her dog, or, for that matter, of the passenger with a penchant for making bets on even the most morbid of possibilities? To me, these moments of intended joviality fell flat, and the quirkiness of the characters seemed unearned. It was almost as if the writers were compensating for the lack of brevity in the middle of the film. But ask yourself this question: Would you laugh if a woman were concerned about the safety of a beloved pet or proposed a bet on whether you’d make it to Shanghai alive? I know I wouldn’t were I in the characters’ situation, so why would I as a member of the audience?

There are, of course, parts of the film that have not dated particularly well. The film opens with a gong and a few questionable images intended to get viewers ready for a film set in China. There’s also the doctor who both smokes himself and sees nothing wrong with a man of medicine dispensing cigarettes. And then there’s the film’s depiction of both China and the Chinese. In one scene, Chang tells one of his traveling companions that in China “time and life have no value,” and in another, we see a Chinese man happily smiling as his cow blocks the train track. In fact, as I reflect on the film, it seems that the only two Chinese characters presented as being intelligent or multidimensional were Chang and Hui Fei, and in the case of Hui Fei, even this is problematic, for it is implied that only women of a certain lowly profession could ever afford expensive clothes and a first-class train ticket. And of course, there’s the film’s politics and the fact that the side of the Civil War that the characters seem to be rooting for is no longer seen in the same light by historians.

But I digress. Despite all its faults - and the focus on the relationship is the most egregious - Shanghai Express remains a compelling film. I was drawn into the characters’ plight and riveted by the events that unfolded as they tried to get themselves out of a very dangerous situation. I grew to admire Dietrich’s character and to empathize with Hui Fei. I also watched Chang with a sense of foreboding, at every minute expecting his soft words to sentence our heroes to their tragic deaths. And while I wasn’t terrible moved by the romance, I admit to being a bit choked up when Shanghai Lily’s first steps into free Peking find her replacing something that the love of her life has lost. She just can’t help herself, and, in fairness, neither could I. Despite my difficulties with the hero’s icy demeanor and Dietrich’s occasionally off-beat delivery, I still found myself invested enough in their storyline to experience a sense of relief when they finally find themselves in each other’s arms. It didn’t make me believe that the captain would pine for her for five years, but maybe that doesn’t matter. After all, if a movie can satisfy the heart with a simple embrace, then it has done its job. Still, 5 years? (on DVD and Blu-ray as part of Criterion’s box set Dietrich & Von Sternberg in Hollywood)

3 and a half stars

*Shanghai Express was the top-grossing film of 1932, raking in $3.7 million at the box office.

*It was nominated for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. It won in the latter category.