Review - Carmen Jones (1954)

September 1, 2026
 
Review – Carmen Jones – U.S., 1954
 

Let’s start with the obvious. When you hear that there’s a musical starring Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge, you don’t expect to hear lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein set to classical music by French composer Georges Bizet. Belafonte had begun his career backed by the Charlie Parker Band in the late 1940s, and he would go on to record twenty-seven albums and appear in at least fourteen films. Dandridge had begun her career in a song-and-dance act with her sister before making her screen debut in Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields’s 1935 musical-comedy Mississippi. She went on to make ten Soundies from 1941-1942, a period of time in which she also performed in one of Duke Ellington’s musical reviews. She recorded a jazz album in 1958, which sadly remained unreleased until 1999. My point is this: Both of the stars of Carmen Jones were amazing performers, so imagine my surprise when they open up their mouths and out come the operatic stylings of LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne.
 
Having said that, I have to admit there is a strange, unfortunate logic to this choice. See, the film is an adaptation of the 1943 stage musical of the same name, and this musical was itself an adaptation of Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, which stirred up controversy with its depiction of immorality and murder. It seems understandable then that someone thought it would be a good idea to mix Bizet’s notes with lyrics by the person who penned such theatrical classics as “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” Who knew the results would sound more similar to the masterful 1957 Looney Tunes cartoon What’s Opera, Doc than Roger & Hammerstein’s classic Oklahoma?
 
At its core, Carmen Jones is a tale of tragic temptation. Belafonte plays a soldier named Joe who seems to be perfectly content. Not only is he is engaged to a terrific woman who is equally crazy about him, but he is also about to begin training as a pilot. In fact, in the early moments of the film, he and his girlfriend Cindy Lou make plans to elope. Dandridge plays Carmen, and when we first see her, wearing a black and red dress with a red rose on it, she walks around a mess hall checking out her options, and singing a song that includes the telling lyric, “If I love you, that’s the end of you.” After a major dust-up, Joe is tasked with taking Carmen to civilian authorities 50 miles from the base. Eventually, the two of them end up in Carmen’s home, and not even the ominous warning from Carmen’s grandmother that “trouble coming your way” can keep Joe from succumbing to Carmen’s charms.
 
In the scenario I’ve described, you’d expect for Carmen to be the kind of femme fatale that one normally sees in film noir from the 1930s and 40s, but, perhaps as a result of the enforcement of the Hayes Code, the film never seems to commit to that characterization. Instead, it is Carmen’s impulses, not her innate personality, that bring her misery, for she seems to be unable to put others’ needs before her own. Is this the trouble her grandmother warned about? Perhaps, but it could just as easily be Joe’s claustrophobic existence and growing jealousy, both of which made me recall the downfall of Othello.
 
As I describe this, I’m reminded of aspects of the movie that I greatly admired, yet for every stretch of film that builds the drama and increases the viewers unease and concern, there’s a musical number that practically grinds that tension to a halt and replaces it with gawkiness. Picture this. Carmen has just arrived at an out-of-the-way joint called Billy Pastor’s Café. Inside, the place is packed, there’s a live jazz band, and several couples are dancing feverishly. It is ripe with energy, alcohol, and the potential for both romance and seduction. A lively young woman starts to sing a song called “Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum.” The sentiments seem appropriate; however, the rhythm better suits Bizet’s original heroine, who was gypsy, than a character much more likely to be drawn to the sounds and sentiments of 1950s jazz. Increasing this awkwardness are the voices, which, much like many of those used in early Hollywood musicals, were sung in a way that now sounds overly fancy and emotionless. The result is not amazement and allure, but bafflement and detachment.
 
Back in 1954, the film was a big hit, making almost $10 million at the box office and earning two Academy Awards nominations, one of which made Dandridge the first woman of color to be nominated for Best Actress. More recently, in 1992, the United States National Film Registry deemed it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” I agree with their assessment. However, not everything that is significant is a masterpiece, and not every masterpiece is significant. Being the first does not mean being the best, so while Carmen Jones should be lauded for the audacity of its casting, the unevenness of its musical numbers, as well as the obvious lip synching, weighs the film down, diminishes its strengths, and denies viewers the chance to fully appreciate the depth of its stars’ talents. In other words, Carmen Jones is a rarity – both a game-changer and a missed opportunity. I wish I liked it more. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - Make Way for Tomorrow

 May 20, 2022
 
Make Way for Tomorrow – U.S., 1937
 

There are stories that transcend time, that tell such universal truths that, despite clear indicators that they are from a specific time and place, they have a resonance that a more recent film replete with the latest technological advances and starring members of the current A-list simply may not. Sometimes they are mirrors providing a physical image to things that many of us often would prefer not to have running around in our heads, harsh truths about the kind of people we either are or are susceptible to becoming in just the right (or wrong in this case) circumstance. Ang Lee touched on this in his debut film, Pushing Hands, Ira Sachs explored a variation of it in Love Is Strange, Barry Levinson in Avalon, Yasujiro Ozu in Tokyo Story, Edward Yang in Yi Yi. And one such truth is this: We can be quite awful to the people who raised us.
 
Leo McCarey begins his 1937 masterpiece, Make Way for Tomorrow. with an acknowledgement of that sad fact through a scroll that ends with an impassioned plea to heed those immortal words Honor thy mother and father, and frankly speaking, this is the only part of the movie I wish I could apply editor’s scissors to. After all, who needs to be “told” when what follows “shows” in such devastating detail?
 
We then drop in on a family gathering of sorts, and it is soon clear that these do not occur all that often. After some pleasant (and a few unpleasant) pleasantries, the patriarch of the family, Barkley Cooper (Victor Moore) delivers quite a shock: He and his wife, Lucy (Beulah Bondi), both in their seventies, are only a few days away from homelessness, and there’s nothing to be done about it.  Now, in the fairy tale version of this story, the Coopers’ adult children all band together and find an idyllic spot for them to spend their remaining years together. Here, that notion is fractured almost immediately.
 
There are concerns about space, distance, timing, financing, and – sadly, perhaps most obstructionist of all – family. Some of these concerns indeed have merit, for few people, especially those living in the big city, buy a bigger (and more expensive) house on the off-chance that their parents need a place to stay later. Soon, the children reach a decision – to split the couple up. Mr. Cooper will stay with the eldest daughter, Cora (Elisabeth Risdon), and Mrs. Copper will live with the eldest son, George (Thomas Mitchell), in his big apartment, currently co-occupied by George, his wife, Anita (Fay Bainter), and their teenage daughter, Rhoda (Barbara Read). Temporarily, their children assure them, and Mrs. Cooper is willing to believe these optimistic sentiments. Mr. Cooper, much less so. Why would it work, he reasons, when it hasn’t worked for anyone else?
 
Thus, two people who have spent the previous fifty years together are separated in the vein hope that their children, into whose hands they’ve just placed their well-being, will do right by them. It’s telling then that Robert Cooper (Ray Meyer), the youngest son, who bursts into a jazzy homage to his mother upon entering the Cooper’s home, and their younger daughter, Nellie (Minna Gombell), practically disappear from the film.
 
The film adopts an episodic formula that works impressively. McCarey first shows us Mrs. Cooper’s experience, which sees George’s wife and daughter adopt that ever-positive message it’s only three months – only for three months to seem much more permanent with each passing day. Traditions are disrupted, private space is lost, and friends stop calling on Rhoda. In one scene, Mrs. Cooper (the wife) tries to explain to Mrs. Cooper (the mother) that she too is Mrs. Cooper, and that only one Mrs. Cooper should be running the house and taking care of Mr. Cooper (the son and husband). It doesn’t solve anything. In another, Mrs. Cooper (the wife) is holding a bridge class in her home, and the evening is going splendidly until the Cooper’s maid (Louise Beavers) enters carrying the elder Mrs. Cooper’s rocking chair. The “invasion” practically unnerves Anita. The scene culminates with an emotional phone call between the elder Coopers, one which occurs in full-view of the bridge class and its instructor. The room is dead silent, stunned out of their annoyance by the sheer heartbreak of the situation, and yet not a single person offers a word of comfort. In truth, what can they say? Could anything make the situation better?
 
McCarey then transports us a few states over to update us on Mr. Cooper’s status before finishing the film by bringing these two characters back together, but not for the reasons you’d hope. The finale is pure cinematic magic. I was struck as I watched this part of the film by two sets of characters. There were the Cooper children and their families, of course, and then there were the people Mr. Cooper encountered in his new home and those he and his wife meet during their reunion in the big city. In fairness to the former group, most of them try. It’s just that human nature is not on their side. You can have all of the best of intentions only to see those sentiments dwarfed and ultimately defeated by instinctive tendencies toward self-preservation. Get things back to normal. Preserve your space, your routine, your social network. I recently read an essay by a college student whose family experienced bouts of homelessness. In one passage, he recounts having to continually move from home to home because of his relatives’ “one-night only” policy. My immediate reaction was that I would never do that, and yet years ago, when my half-sister called out of the blue and asked if she and her boyfriend could stay with us while they explored a possible move to California, I blinked, and the visit never came to pass. So, I get the children. They’re not horrible people; they’re just been put in a horrible situation, and like so many of us, they are unable to rise to the occasion.
 
But then there are the people the Cooper’s meet along the way: the owner of a corner store who engages with Mr. Cooper in long, meaningful chats whenever he frequents his shop, the manager of the hotel who treats them like royalty when he learns that they spent their honeymoon in his hotel fifty years earlier, the band leader who spies them in the crowd and changes melodies to give them more time to dance the waltz. There’s even a car salesman who becomes so affected by them that he practically becomes their chauffer for the evening. In these and many other characters, we see the humanity and goodness that stress and self-protective tendencies have severely weakened in the Connor children and their families.
 
And then there’s the ending, which is one of the most poignant in cinematic history.
 
We are guided along this journey by two extremely capable lead actors and a host of equally impressive supporting actors. We sense the down-home nature of the Moore’s and Bondi’s independently minded-characters. These are people who would shed far fewer tears over the loss of a house than they would the loss of time with each other. They seem less out of place than out of time. Their children turn to other people for advice, and while they may get along with their grandchildren’s generation in small doses, there’s a sense that there will always be a gap between them, as if time, as if is prone to do, has made their experiences and views, irrelevant. Make Way for Tomorrow shows the error in this way of thinking. In the Cooper’s, we see two people we should emulate instead of looking past. We should want what they have and seek them out for advice of how to achieve it. Of course, that conflicts with the understandable focus on the present and the belief that previous generations couldn’t possible comprehend today’s. Step aside, we seem to say. Make way for tomorrow. We never suspect that one day they’ll be saying that about us or that they’ll be as wrong as we were. (on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection)
 
5 stars

Review - The Mikado (1960)

 April 4, 2022
 
The Mikado – 1960, US
 

You never really get over your first love, especially if what are you most known for later in life is not it. In the case of Grouch Marx, he was known for his absurdity, wit, and whimsical musings onscreen, and yet, Marx started out a singer. He had a beautiful voice, and when desperate economic times came, he was pulled out of school and sent on the road as part of a traveling musical act. To say it did not go well would be an understatement, though this was no fault of his own; he just happened to have hitched his fortunes to two unscrupulous performers, both of whom ran off with his earnings, leaving him penniless and alone in cities he hardly knew.
 
Fame came later, first from his years with his brothers in Vaudeville and on Broadway, and later from his slapstick antics in a series of wacky films, also with his brothers. He would sing in many of these film, yet his numbers were known more for their puns and absurdity than musical complexity (think “I’m Against It” from Horse Feathers and Lydia the Tattooed Lady from 1939’s At the Circus). Did audiences look forward to his musical numbers the way later ones kept their eyes peeled for Hitchcock’s brief appearances? It’s hard to say. However, I can imagine audiences being amazed by the sheer number of witticisms flying by them at break-neck speed and being perhaps a bit frustrated when some of them didn’t have the decency to stay long enough to be properly understood. By the time he made The Mikado, which aired on television as part of the Bell Telephone Hour, he was 70 years old and wealthy. He could have been easing into retirement. And yet…
 
The following quote is attributed to Marx’s daughter, Melinda Marx Leung: “It was my father’s lifelong dream to play the role of Ko-Ko in The Mikado.” Thank goodness he got his wish then – or at least part of it. After all, when an opera clocks in at two hours and forty minutes and your production of it lasts just 52 minutes, it is really accurate to say that you have done the musical? It’s a bit like saying that you played Ahab in Moby Dick when all you really did was a two-person scene during a night of amateur theater. On the other hand, can you conceive of anyone in today’s Hollywood who would perform in an opera? Jennifer Hudson perhaps, but that’s where my list pretty much ends.
 
So, just what is The Mikado, and why would Marx have been so drawn to it? Well, for one, despite its name and setting, it is not an opera about Japan. In truth, nothing in it - neither the characters nor the setting – bares any resemblance to Japan. Instead, it is a satire on British society and institutions that just happens to use Japan as a stand-in for the British Empire. The characters’ names, far from being representative of the Japanese culture, are examples of English baby-talk. For example, the lead character is named Nanki-Poo, a fun riff on the word handkerchief. And Nanki-Poo’s love interest? She goes by the name of Yum Yum.
 
In the opening scene, we learn that the leader of Japan, the Mikado (Dennis King), has made flirting a capital crime, an act that is intended to mock British regulations far more than Japanese society, which I’m not sure either Gilbert or Sullivan knew much about. I believe it is this aspect of the opera that drew Marx to it, for he must have been deeply appreciative of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ability to use art to poke fun at authority and convention. After all, he and his brothers had practically made a career out of it.
 
But I digress. This is a review, after all, and as such, the central question I should be answering is this one: Is it any good? The short answer, thankfully, is yes, and much of its success is due to the fact that Gilbert and Sullivan saw The Mikado as a comedy, and comedy – especially when it involved poking fun at authority - was Groucho’s bread and butter. As Ko-Ko, he seems aware of the absurdity even when curveballs are lobbed his way. In the film’s opening moments, we learn that Ko-Ko, a former tailor, was convicted of flirting and thus sentenced to death. However, authorities, no fan of the Mikado’s edicts and reliance of capital punishment, decide to make the next man scheduled for execution the new High Executioner, reasoning quite logically that one cannot execute himself. (It’s dangerous, we later learn from Ko-Ko, and besides suicide is a capital offense.) One guess who the new executioner turns out to be.
 
For some unexplained reason, Ko-Ko is also scheduled to marry Yum-Yum (Barbara Meister), which comes as a shock to Nanki-Poo, who upon arrival, thinking that her guardian (oh, that’s Ko-Ko also) has already been executed, quickly announces his intentions to pursue her hand in marriage. Hearing of his feelings, as well as his later intention to commit suicide due to his dashed dreams, Nanki-Poo (Robert Rounseville) makes a deal with Ko-ko. Seeing as the Mikado has just threatened to eliminate the position of High Executioner if no execution takes place within a month (in the opera, he threatens to reduce the city of Titipu to the status of a village), Ko-Ko agrees to let Nanki-Poo marry Yum-Yum, provided that he agrees to be the one executed, after which Ko-Ko promises to do the honorable thing and marry the recently widowed Yum-Yum. (Yes, this is really the plot.) Suffice to say, nothing goes right with the plan. And did I mention that Nanki-Poo is really the son of the Mikado and is fleeing an arranged marriage? Believe it or not, this is all revealed in the first 19 minutes.
 
Ko-Ko is always close enough to break in with a witty comment or a life-saving idea. Characters break the fourth wall, and lines such as “You can see how being buried alive puts a damper on things” are said with deadpan seriousness, much like Leslie Nielson and company would later do to great effect in the Naked Gun movies. Only Ko-Ko seems aware of the ludicrousness of it all, and this may be why his songs differ so greatly from those of the other characters. I cannot say with any certainty that Marx improvised any of his lines, but if he didn’t, it’s amazing how well the role suited his brand of humor and established personality.
 
We no longer have anything resembling The Bell Telephone Hour, and that’s a shame, for television can be so much more than 30-seconds of mindless distraction. Today, we have shows like The Masked Singer, in which celebrities don costumes and dance and sing. These shows may be entertaining, but are they inspirational? Will audiences walk away from them wondering what else a writing team created, or decide to give a form of music that had previously not been on their radar a chance? Groucho knew and appreciated Gilbert and Sullivan, and he used his star power to bring them to a medium that they likely couldn’t have contemplated the existence of. In doing so, he brought them to a whole new audience, an accomplishment that continues today whenever a fan of the Marx Brothers decides to watch The Mikado because it stars Groucho. I know this because he’s the reason I watched it, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful. (on DVD from VAI)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*The Mikado was originally broadcast in color, but sadly, no color copies exist today. There are also times, particularly during a few musical numbers, when the audio is not clear.   

Review - The Story of Temple Drake

 January 8, 2022
 
The Story of Temple Drake – U.S., 1933
 

I have read William Faulkner’s 1931 novel Sanctuary, and, if you’ll pardon my frankness, Stephen Roberts’s 1933 film The Story of Temple Drake is not it. In fairness, how could it be? Sanctuary is replete with truly sadistic behavior and moral depravity and features a villain so hideous that few modern directors not named David Lynch would even dream of putting him up on the silver screen. Interestingly, Faulkner needed 336 pages to tell his story; The Story of Temple Drake clocks in at just over 72 minutes. Suffice to say, much of what rightly made the novel controversial remained unfilmed. In fact, gone are much of the details that elevated Sanctuary to the thrillingly wicked experience it is, transforming it into a relatively decent yarn about a young independent woman growing up in a time of great social change and ultimately finding her voice. The film works, even if it never completely sheds its watered-down impression.
 
Like many films during what it now referred to as the Pre-code Hollywood era, a term that was invented after the fact, its protagonist is a young woman coming into her own. This includes adopting a rather liberal attitude toward dating and physical affection, yet still adhering to the social norms of the time, meaning that the date next extends beyond the front door. In keeping with the modern spirit, Temple (Miriam Hopkins) has no interest in getting married, this despite the frequent proposals she receives from a young lawyer named Stephen Benbow (William Gargan). The two of them have an interesting exchange about this. She reasons that she likes him too much; his response: “And love me too little.” Too little to give up your youthful ways, perhaps?
 
At a party, Temple runs off with one of her suitors, and since he’s driving completely plastered, the two of them end up lying on a dirt road, having been thrown from her now overturned car. And who should come to her aid? Trigger (Jack La Rue), a tall menacing bootlegger with a cigarette constantly dangling from his lips and a look on his face that never lets you relax for even a minute. (His name is Popeye in Faulkner’s novel) It’s wonder Temple initially refuses his offer for shelter.
 
The film offers a rather discomforting contrast in two sets of characters. First, there are the characters from the city – well-dressed, well-spoken, and generally polite - and then there’s the group that hangs around Trigger. They are clearly from the countryside, and the film depicts them as either cold, simple-minded, or predatory. Two of them even advance toward Temple with obvious forced physical contact in mind. Even the character who offers Temple what she believes is protection is more than a little suspicious of her and even warns her to stay away from her husband. Unfortunately, there’s no real protection from a man like Trigger.
 
Following Temple’s assault, Faulkner’s novel becomes more complicated, culminating in more sadistic events and a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome. And I’ll be honest. I was riveted throughout. The problem with The Story of Temple Drake is that, by jettisoning the book’s most salacious details and changing a key aspect of a court scene, there’s not much there. Perhaps that’s why the final half an hour feels so rushed. Earlier characters are forgotten or marginalized, and as the film approaches its inevitable courtroom conclusion, it acquires a predictable feel partly because we already know everything that is going to be said by that final witness. The scene is still powerful, but since the end result is exactly what we expected it to be, it is a lesser power, the kind you experience because of the work of the performers, but one also that fades quickly because…well, you saw it coming a mile away.
 
There’s a tendency to give a film like The Story of Temple Drake more credit than it deserves simple because of the time in which it was made. We seem to think that old movies were depictions of good men and traditional women, innocent pictures made during innocent times. In truth, there were no purely innocent times, and many of the movies made before 1935, when the Hayes Code began to be enforced, pushed boundaries with their depictions of a society that were closer to reality than many people cared to admit. It was easier to blame movies for setting the example, rather than seeing them as a response to changes already underway. The fact that Roberts’s film completely disappeared for more than twenty years only increases our desire to praise it.
 
However, time also has a way of making blemishes more apparent, and there’s no question that The Story of Temple Drake has a problematic set of characters and a message that could be interpreted as reinforcing the need for marriage and moral behavior if for no other reason than to save women from the consequences that can come from adopting a modern lifestyle. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it is at odds with Temple Drake’s story, causing it to seem that she is at fault for her own misery. And maybe this was the intent. After all, the original title of the movie was The Shame of Temple Drake. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Criterion Collection)
 
3 stars

Review - Tomorrow's Children

 
December 18, 2021
 
Tomorrow’s Children – U.S., 1934
 

Wallace Thurman’s Tomorrow’s Children is a movie without a spine. It is a film that purports to be an exploration of the morality of sterilization, and, to its credit, there are a number of impassioned debates about the practice. However, images always trump emotional appeal, and it seems awfully hard to make the case that you’re against something when your visuals depict the worst possible examples as its supposed victims. Even Dr. Brooks (nicely played by Donald Douglas), the hero of the film, says the death of a newborn is a blessing in disguise. The deceased’s mother, you see, would have been poor, and her siblings would have been “feeble-minded” and physically challenged. You know what they say about friends like these.
 
The film begins with a newspaper headline heralding Hitler’s endorsement of sterilization for the “unfit.” Around 400,000 “undesirables” would go on to be sterilized from 1933 – 1945, an act now recognized as a form of genocide. However, before you say the film is putting American supporters of eugenics and sterilization in the same camp as a mass murderer, remember that the film was made in 1934, and it is doubtful that its creators had any hint of the horror that Hitler and negative eugenics would inflict. And eugenics has plenty of supporters on this side of the Atlantic. The newspaper could just as easily have been referencing a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell, or John D. Rockefeller Jr.
 
We’re then privy to the rather forced conversations of three diverse groups on – you guessed it – sterilization. First, two government officials seem open to the practice, then a women’s group seems to be opposed, but admits the need for more information. Only an Irish-American priest stands firmly in opposition, arguing that it is an affront to religion, a sentiment that matches the imagery used in the film’s opening credits - sunlight breaking through a series of dark clouds. We are then transported into a hospital where, once again, sterilization is the topic of the day. Interestingly, most of the voices from the medical profession are in favor of the practice, partly due to their apparent disgust of their less economically advantaged patients. Again, with friends like these…
 
Consider this. The film’s idea of an unbiased look at the topic is to focus viewers on a poor family with children either in jail, infirmed, or mentally-challenged. This is the family whose dead newborn is spoken of so callously, and the deceased’s parents are either too greedy or indifferent to care about her. Later, we see a parade of those the state intends to put under the knife, and there’re hardly people designed to sway public opinion against the procedure. There’s a criminal who’s offered a shorter sentence in exchange for consenting to the operation; a violent, lecherous young man who, just before his court hearing, rips off the clothes of his nurse; and a man who stares into space and appears to not know what planet he’s on. Hardly anyone raises an objection to their sterilization, but mention it in relation to a healthy, hard-working seventeen-year-old girl, and that’s another situation entirely.
 
The young lady in question is Alice Mason (Diane Sinclair), daughter of the aforementioned couple with the “problematic” genes. She is presented as the outlier, the good apple in a batch of otherwise bad ones. She supports the family financially, has a decent hardworking boyfriend (Carlyle Moore Jr.) who wants to marry her, and is genuinely sweet. She returns home one night to find two strangers in her home, both government employees, and is informed that her parents have given their consent for the entire family to be sterilized. Alice quietly gives them the slip and goes on the lam. Eventually, she’ll turn to Dr. Brooks for assistance.
 
The film has a number of interesting moments. A scene in which a pro-sterilization judge callously denies the appeals of patient after patient is well done, showing how stacked the deck is against those who cannot afford the best legal representation. There’s also a pleasant scene in which Dr. Brooks visits the Mason family, and the way he speaks establishes the care and concern he has for children whose only fault is that they inherited defective genes. Also, the scenes involving Alice and her boyfriend successfully establish how deeply their bond goes and draw us to their side. There are also a number of scenes in which we get a good sense of the coldness with which those enforcing sterilization laws interact with those whose hopes of a family they wish to squash.
 
Had Tomorrow’s Children focused exclusively on Ms. Mason’s plight, it would have been a much stronger film, addressing questions of whether someone entirely healthy on the outside should be punished for what may exist on the inside. Instead, it tries to play both sides, showing the “problems” that sterilization can solve, while seeming arguing that it is only really a crime when someone nice and attractive becomes its target. Dr. Brooks, the supposed voice of enlightenment, goes from staunchly opposing sterilization to only really put up a fight when Alice is at risk, a fact that makes his stance against the practice one of convenience rather than true conviction. After all, if something is morally and ethically wrong, it is wrong in all cases, not just the ones that can easily elicit sympathy.
 
Instead, we get a cop-out final act that removes all pretense of the filmmaker’s intent. This is not a film about the consequences of sterilization or a serious exploration of the pros and cons of its implementation. Instead, it is a film that uses the topic to punch down at a population unable to fight back, and its hero, despite his sermonizing and his action-film inspired mad dash to save Alice’s womanhood, is ultimately a champion of one. In the end, we are meant to rejoice: the pretty girl can have her baby, and society is rid of tomorrow’s problems. We can go home happy, right? (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan

October 30, 2021
 
Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan – Taiwan, 1959
 

I have seen a number of images of long lines snaking around movies theaters in Taiwan during the 1950’s and 60’s, of stars walking the proverbial red carpet as adoring fans make their feelings about their idols perfectly clear, and of hundreds of joyful faces as the magic of film washes over them. These are images of what many have said were the golden years of Taiwanese cinema. However, never have I seen any evidence that these audiences were for a film starring either Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, yet the influence of these two comic pairings on Lee Hsing’s 1959 film Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan seems unmistakable.
 
The names in the film’s moniker refer to a rather heavy-set poor young man named Wang (Li Guan-chang) and his equally poor, much thinner pedicab-driving roommate and best friend, Liu (Chang Fu-cai). Out of necessity, the two share a bed in a dinky one-bedroom shack that likely doesn’t have a kitchen or anything resembling indoor plumbing. It is in this setting that the two of them discuss their plights and, in one humorous scene, continually utter the only word that comes to mind, alas. The beginning of the film clearly establishes their characters. Liu is the harder working of the two, yet his efforts are often for naught. As for Wang, he can never seem to get enough sleep. In an early scene, Liu drives him to the spot where he shines shoes, only for him to plant his head against a column and fall asleep standing up. His eyes don’t stay open for long at work either.
 
These early moments contain attempts at comedy that were not entirely fresh even in 1959. In one, Liu unsuccessfully attempts to transport two overweight passengers; in another, Wang’s fellow shoeshines take advantage of his narcoleptic tendencies and use shoe polish to make him look foolish. There’s also a gag involving just how many plates of rice the two starving young men can eat. Some of these hit just enough to be entertaining; some of them, alas, are well past their expiration date.
 
The film is more successful – at least initially – during scenes in which Liu interacts with her girlfriend, Ah-Hua. In these scenes, Liu moves beyond the stereotypical role of the lovable loser and acquires a certain level of depth, and it shows during a tender scene in which Liu shows his appreciation by purchasing Ah-Hua a pair of shoes. Ah-Hua is bubbly played by Ke Yuxia, and her scenes with Liu have a tenderness to them that the film has a hard time recreating when she is not on screen, which, alas, occurs far too often. Fortunately, Li and Chang have a good rapport onscreen, and when the material they’re given is halfway decent, as it is in those early scenes, they are quite entertaining.
 
One day, Wang and Liu meet a fortune teller who looks at Wang through a rather large magnifying glass, a la Sherlock Holmes, and proclaims that he’ll strike it rich in three days. To Liu, though, he delivers more somber news – he only has 44 days to live. Incredulous laughter follows these predictions, of course, but there’s Wang, three days later, suddenly rich after winning the lottery. You can probably guess what Liu’s reaction is. The solution, you ask? Well, let’s just say the title isn’t a red herring.
 
Thus begins a series of misadventures that more closely resemble disparate half-hour television episodes than a continuous narrative. There’s a running gag involving a briefcase that Liu carries everywhere and which contains all of Wang’s money. It soon catches the eye of a mysterious traveler. Later, in a much more problematic scene, the two are captured by a group of Taiwanese aborigines and brought into separate huts, where two female tribal leaders attempt to get our heroes to sleep with them – something you certainly never saw in a Laurel and Hardy short. And then there are the gangsters Wang and Liu encounter, a meeting which culminates in the two friends dressed in drag and leading the gangsters on. To say the two men make unconvincing females would be an understatement.
 
Bookending these scenes are brief glimpses of some of Taiwan’s tourist hot spots – destinations like Zhinan Temple, New Beitou, Fort Zeelandia, and Sun Moon Lake – and when I say brief, I mean seconds long. In most of these snippets, we don’t even see Wang and Liu, leaving the impression that the director simply used stock images. Even more problematic is the fact that Wang and Liu never discuss the places they visit or seem particularly affected by anything they see. They don’t even have a reaction to a sign on a trail in Pingtung instructing visitors to speak only Mandarin Chinese. Politically, this is understandable, as Taiwan was in its first decade of martial law. Narratively, though, it stretches credibility.
 
I mentioned earlier the impact that teams like Laurel and Hardy appear to have had on the film. However, it does not appear that Lee Hsing and screenwriter Tung Hsiao truly understood what made many of those early comedy teams so great. First, Laurel and Hardy were never slackers – they had dreams and worked hard, even if they were rarely successful. Then there’s the innocent, boyish excitement they exhibited when a young lady looked in their direction – that aw shucks smile that came across Laurel’s face and the way Hardy shyly fumbled with his tie. While Liu has some of Laurel’s charm, little of Hardy’s innocence comes through in Wang’s mannerisms. And then there are the character’s steady personalities. Laurel was always Laurel, and Hardy was always Hardy. However, in Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan, Wang starts out Hardy and ends up becoming Abbott; Liu starts out Laurel and transforms into Costello. Seriously, can you imagine Laurel ever paying a woman to be able to kiss her cheek, especially if he was engaged, and then getting the girl?
 
Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan is therefore a truly mixed bag. It does an ample job of establishing its lead characters and putting them in situations that have both dramatic and comic potential. However, it does not appear that anyone involved in the film had any idea what to do with them, and so these initially likeable characters inconsistently fumble from one “adventure” to another without ever evolving or acknowledging the reason they took the trip in the first place. Alas, they deserved better. (on DVD in Region 3)
 
2 stars
 
*Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan is in Taiwanese with English subtitles.
 
*I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Brother Wang and Brother Liu Tour Taiwan has two parts. The first one ends rather abruptly (in the middle of a chase scene, no less) when Liu and Wang appear onscreen and actually utter those famous words to be continued. According to Wikipedia, the second part came out two weeks after the first.
 
*The film also apparently spawned seven sequels. Go figure.

Review - The Flame of Love

 February 27, 2021

Flame of Love, The – 1930, UK 

You would think that a movie with a running time of 76 minutes and a plot involving a desperate race to save a condemned man would not waste a single moment. Not in 1930, apparently. That year, director Richard Eichberg and writer Monckton Hoffe, like so many others in the early days of talkies, were seemingly so giddy over the arrival of sound that they couldn’t resist inserting not just one, but five musical performances into their film The Flame of Love. And these are not the kinds of musical numbers that move the plot along or reveal characters’ inner conflicts or feelings. No, these are pure eye candy, replete with scantily-clad female performers and unintentionally laugh-inducing lyrics about how beautiful Russia “songs” are. The latter description refers to two numbers that are disappointing for another reason: They follow moments of intense emotion. Two lovers gaze into each other’s eyes and completely convey the depths of their desire. They want nothing more but to embrace and passionately lock lips, but what do Eichberg and Hoffe have one of them do? Run to the piano. Did I mention that these characters are alone?
 
Then again, they really weren’t. The higher-ups had deemed British audiences not yet ready to witness intimacy between a Caucasian and an Asian; hence, two characters who pine for each other and look at each other with intense stares that perfectly convey their collective longing are reduced to grasping each other’s hands and occasionally receiving a peck on the knuckles. It is hard to understate how disappointing this must have been for the film’s star, Anna May Wong. She had gone to the UK hoping to find better roles, only to find the same insulting restrictions that she had experienced in Hollywood. And it would be awfully hard to understate how dated scenes like these make the film seem. We are essentially watching a relic of all that was wrong with early motion pictures.
 
In The Flame of Love, Wong plays Hai-Tang, a singer in what resembles a Russian vaudeville circuit. After a brief reunion with her Russian military officer boyfriend, Boris Boriskoff (John Longden), she performs in front of a packed crowd which includes several high-ranking members of the Russian military, including the Grand Duke (Georg H. Schnell). The Grand Duke takes an immediate liking to her and sends a “request” that Hai-Tang meet him later that night. Interestingly, Boris is the one ordered to deliver the invitation. Two things are immediately apparent: Boris has no intention of granting the request, and the Grand Duke has no interest in taking no for an answer. Thus, something has to give, and only one of them has complete authority over the other.
 
Hai-Tang’s song and dance number, or as it might more correctly be called, “the bad idea that they multiplied by three,” must be seen to be believed. In it, the curtain rises on Hai-Tang. She is seated regally on an elevated pillow, decked out in the kind of flashy, skimpy attire that frequenters of red-light districts see ethnic women perform in and assume must be cultural. That she then performs a song that is much more Western than Asian only makes the scene more surreal. First, Hai-Tang sings, then young men dressed in Terra-cotta uniforms wearing men throw off their armor and impressively perform acrobatic feats for so long that what was once impressive becomes tedious. Then, for reasons truly unknown, it’s Hai-Tang’s time to bust a move, and what comes out of her is an unsightly mix of Hawaiian luaus and Isadora Duncan prancing. There’s a silver lining to this travesty of filmmaking, however: the lack of authenticity and Wong’s questionable techniques remove any doubt about the Grand Duke’s intentions. After all, there’s absolutely no way he’d want a private performance of that.
 
As for the film’s other numbers, they aren’t really an improvement. Boriskoff’s intended romantic serenade falls well short of the mark, and a brief number involving a barbershop quartet is just filler – presumably to help the film achieve feature film length. Other musical numbers take place at an after-hours club, and surprisingly they exist for a purpose, to demonstrate the difference between the kind of place officers go on official business and the ones they frequent when they’re off-duty. The latter was dirtier and much more raucous, and I got the impression that Eichberg intended the scene as a PG-version of an orgy. Alas, like he did with Wong’s first number, the director doesn’t know when the quit - the first of these debaucheries was effective; the second was pure overkill.
 
I mention this aspect of the film because I believe it is the reason the film was panned upon release. Eichberg spends so much time filming people dancing and singing that it’s hard not to get an impression of narrative shallowness. However, if one can look past these numbers, as well as the fact that the only Russian characters who actually sounds Russian speaks as if it is a foreign language to her, there is actually much to laud the film for. At its core, it is about the powerless being at the mercy of the powerful. Hai-Tang may be a famous performer, but it is important to remember just how much performers were looked down upon in the past, and requests like the Grand Duke’s were sadly routine. Plus, as a Chinese woman living in the days before the first World War, Hai-Tang is paradoxically viewed as not being marriage material, while simultaneously being seen as erotic and desirable. Interestingly, Hai-Tang recognizes this. She is under no illusion of the Grand Duke’s intent, and she also has a less than perfect view of her relationship with Boris. Early on, she tells her overly optimistic boyfriend that the future will send them down diverging roads and that “[i]t must be so.”
 
Fortunately, once the film dispenses with – or at least reduces – the musical numbers, it becomes an intriguing and emotional film about the efforts of two people to ward off danger and protect both themselves and the people they love. Both Longden and Wong began their careers in silent films, and by the time sound came along, they had learned how to express emotions through looks and expressions. Wong had learned not only how to cry on cue, but also how to simultaneously demonstrate just how deeply anguished a character could be. She needed no words to convey her character’s pain and desperation, and when she and Longden gaze into each other’s eye, they express more than could be achieved with thirty minutes of whispered sweet nothings and heartfelt exposition. They deserve credit for the fact that the second half of the film works as well as it does.
 
Perhaps The Flame of Love can best be summed up as a tale of two halves, of a poorly-conceived first half replete with far too many sideshows, and a dramatic and deeply involving second half that moves with a deliberate and desperate pace. I cared for these characters, and even though the ending is a foregone conclusion based on the casting and earlier foreshadowing, the ending was still a punch to the gut, at least until the very last image, when Boris looks at his lost love, anguish running over his face, and hides his head behind hers. The stupidity of the times didn’t allow him to kiss his beloved good-bye. (on DVD in Region 2)
 
3 stars

Review - Queen Kelly

 February 5, 2021

 Queen Kelly – US, 1929

In Stephen Michael Shearer’s book Gloria Swanson, an entire chapter is devoted to Swanson’s unfinished film Queen Kelly. The chapter itself is fascinating, but one particular part came to mind as I watched the film. In one of the film’s most important scenes – the first meeting between the handsome and playful Prince Wolfram (Walter Bryon) and the spunky commoner Patricia “Kitty” Kelly (Swanson) – the film’s director, Erich von Stroheim, made an unusual request of Bryon. In the scene, the Prince is leading his platoon on a routine exercise when they pass a procession of young ladies from a local convent. One in particular catches his eye. On any other occasion, he would probably put on the charm and delight in making the young lady blush and smile, but on this day, he notices that the young lady’s underwear has fallen down, and he is overcome by a serious case of the giggles. After expressing a gamut of emotions, Kelly settles on anger and hurls the exposed garments at the unsuspecting prince. In the take referenced in Shearer’s book, the prince brought them to his face and smelled them. Needless to say, that did not make the final cut.

And yet, the action would have been more in keeping with a character like Wolfram. Wolfram is a playboy trapped in what looks to be an arranged engagement with a brutally oppressive queen that he has no feeling for whatsoever. More to the point, he’s someone whose idea of a romantic reunion involves starting a potentially deadly fire, using chloroform as a substitute for sweet serenades, and making sure that the woman he has supposedly fallen for has nothing to wear but her nighties. At the very least, these actions hint at a rather perverse idea of courtship. Now imagine the impression that would have been made had he actually put the lady’s undergarments to his nose and become instantly intoxicated.

Alas, that is not the film that either Swanson, who financed the picture as part of her deal with United Artists, or Stroheim had in mind. For his part, Stroheim envisioned a five-hour epic, one that followed Kelly’s journey from naïve youngster to jaded adult, and it would have ended with Kelly perplexingly assuming the throne. However, Swanson, according the film’s Wikipedia page, felt misled by Stroheim’s script and was uncomfortable with the parts of the film set in the Tanzanian city Dar es Salaam. The rift was apparently unresolvable, and Stroheim was fired. It would be the last directing job he ever received.

And so, unable to complete his vision, we are left with an unwise courtship, a violent punishment, and a tragic decision that reflects the reality of the social norms at the time of the film’s release. From there, we get fragments: stills of a letter announcing a sick relative and a long journey by sea, followed by scenes in which Kelly finds herself in the same position as her royal amour. From there, we get references to Stroheim’s script and the complete turnaround that would have occurred in Kelly’s character, and it is perfectly clear that Stroheim intended for the film to be an epic

 Fortunately, there’s a lot to admire about Stroheim’s efforts here. First, the character of Patricia Kelly is an interesting one, and Stroheim elicits some amazing emotional moments from Swanson, ones in which she is asked to display a range of conflicting emotions. We can see each one and recognize their progression. In one scene, she perfectly conveys the dread and shock of a woman who has incurred the wrath of a jealous and violent queen. The result is a tough scene to watch. Stroheim also gets a terrific performance from Bryon. Playing the cad, the naturally alluring Bryon infuses the character with charm and wit, making it perfectly sensible that women would keep picture postcards of him under their pillows. Matching them is the indelible Seena Owen, who plays Queen Regina V. She makes it perfectly understandable that Wolfram would not be able simply to walk away from the engagement, and her facial expressions are the stuff of nightmares.

Ultimately, Swanson’s instincts were correct: Under Stroheim’s direction, the film veers into questionable territory, and not simply because what develops seems superfluous to the main plot. The first hour depicts an unwise and unresolved courtship. Conventional wisdom says to stick with that story line, yet under Stroheim’s direction, Kelly was to have been married off to Jan Vryheid (hammily-played by Tully Marshall), one of the most overtly lecherous characters ever to grace the silver screen. Just what Kelly’s aunt sees in him that makes her think he would be a suitable husband is anyone’s guess. And that would not have been the end of Kelly’s misery.

It would also not have provided an adequate resolution to the film’s love story, for Kelly and Wolfram have known each other for just two days, and few of their conversations are the kind from which he could realistically conclude that he’d found his soul mate. In an attempt to salvage the film, Swanson filmed a brief ending, and to her credit, it more than adequately completes Kelly and Wolfram’s story. This was the ending audiences in Europe and South America saw when the film was finally released in 1932. It would be more than twenty years before audiences in the United States were afforded the same opportunity.

To watch it today is to see a divided film. It is clear that Swanson wanted a Shakespearean love story, while Stroheim wanted a much more perverse and fractured fairy tale. The differing visions ultimately hurt the project. While the personalities of Kelly and the Queen remain consistent, Wolfram’s is all over the place. Does he love Kelly? Certainly not at first, and believing that he suddenly does requires a certain degree of amnesia on the audience’s part. Still, we feel for Kelly, and we grow to want a better life for the Prince. So, it works. It just needed another thirty minutes to develop their relationship more fully and for the film to end without the African journey. Swanson got that. (on DVD from Kino)

3 stars (Stroheim’s version)
3 and a half stars (Swanson’s version)

Review - Drifting

December 20, 2020

Drifting – US, 1923

I believe there is a tendency to give films a pass if they happen to be made by or star someone whose work we generally admire. If the director – say Hitchcock or Chaplin - is the object of approbation, the work might be labeled “lesser” or undergo a “reevaluation” by a generation much more willing to declare any of that person’s creations a masterpiece. If it’s the actor or actress who is esteemed, potential viewers are usually urged to ignore any disappointment that the direction or script may inspire and focus on a performance, the impression being that it is worth any eye-rolling or long sighs that the film inspires as a whole. I mention this because the 1923 film Drifting is likely to be praised for the wrong reasons: It was directed by Tod Browning, whose later film Freaks is often referred to as a masterpiece, and it features a young woman who went on to achieve legendary status, Anna May Wong. So, yes, the film will have its defenders from the get-go.

And yet, let’s imagine a dinner party thrown by the film’s lead characters, Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) and Captain Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore), years after the events depicted in the film. Undoubtedly, one or more of the guests would be unfamiliar with the story of their pairing, and soon, attention would focus on the couple as they set the way-back machine to colonial China during the years opium had a grip on its population. I suspect the retelling would go something like this:

Cassie:           See, I was in Shanghai working… 

Guest:            (cutting her off excitedly) Oh, that’s marvelous! I have so wanted to go there. What did you do, if you don’t mind my asking?

Cassie:           Uh… (awkward pause) I was in sales. Anyway, I…

Guest:            You were a businesswoman? How intriguing! Whatever did you sell?

Cassie:           (clears her throat and lowers her voice considerably) Opium. (At regular volume) Anyway, after blowing all of my money at the tracks, I decided to go to Hang Chow.

Guest:           (still startled by the admission that Cassie used to be a drug dealer; looks at the Captain, who pours himself a drink and quickly gulps it down) Excuse me for interrupting, but how did you get there if you didn’t have any money?

Cassie:           (visibly flustered) Um… I’m not sure exactly. (Turning and breaking the fourth wall) That wasn’t really explained in the film, was it? (turns back to the guest) Anyway, after my arrival in Hang Chow, I was putting away my things when I heard this god-awful noise…pardon my French… outside my room. I opened the door, and there was…

Guest:           Pardon the interruption, but what made you go there? I mean, from what I hear, it is hardly a place for tourists.

Cassie:          (after another uncomfortable pause) Well, that was where my husband had been sent to try to crush the opium trade.

                        (Guest looks stunned and confused)

Cassie:           (with an understandably dry throat) See (clears her throat) I went there to put a stop to his foolish campaign. He was threatening my business and costing me money, after all. I was also asked to cozy up to him and eventually betray him. I even stole a report he wrote and made him think that a sweet young woman who ratted me out was lying.

(Guest, mouth agape, looks at the Captain, who is already on his fifth drink)

Cassie:           (trying to reassure her guest) Look, I know how it sounds, but we fell in love. Honestly, we did. (breaks the fourth wall again) I know we didn’t know each other all that long and that we never had a single scene together in which we talked to each other with our hearts. I know I put him in mortal danger and was mean to all the kids who looked up to him. I know it didn’t make sense that I was dining with my enemy or that he would also lose all the money he had in the world on the same horse. I know the final battle between the villagers, the mountain people, and the colonial army was incomprehensible and that my husband’s friend was way too old to be pursuing fifteen-year-old Rose Li, and I acknowledge that her fate fit a pattern of Asian characters conveniently stepping out of the picture so that the Caucasian leads live happily ever after. But darn it, the picture needed a happy ending and… (breaks down and sobs)

Jarvis:            (walks behind his wife and gently massages her shoulders; looks straight ahead) Don’t worry, dear. It was directed by Tod Browning and features Anna May Wong just before her star-making turn in The Thief of Bagdad.  Critics will surely give it a pass. (Drifting is on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars (and yes, I’m being a bit generous with the extra half star, but what can I say – I like Anna May Wong)

Review - Juno and the Paycock

 

 September 24, 2020

Juno and the Paycock – 1930, UK

Legend has it that Alfred Hitchcock had two reactions to scripts for episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: If he liked them, you knew it right away, and if he found them subpar, he would be silent a moment and them pronounce them merely “okay.” Now, I have no way of knowing how Hitchcock reacted to Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock or if he ever saw it when it was staged at the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Ireland, in 1924. However, I can imagine the first half eliciting one of his nonchalant okays and the second a much more enthusiastic yes. In other words, the film is one of those that you’ll likely walk away from happy you saw, but that will diminish upon reflection, as you find yourself reminiscing on the first half and its many problematic aspects.

The film is set in Dublin during the early days of the Irish Civil War. This is reflected in the film’s opening scene, in which a middle-aged man delivers a powerful speech about the need for Ireland to remain united; it is met with a hail of gunfire and sends many of the spectators tumbling into a pub. And here is where the film makes its first misstep. A bartender sees the crowd and starts getting glasses ready; The camera then focuses our attention on two of the stumbled, “Captain” Jack Boyle (awkwardly played by Edward Chapman) and his loafer friend, Joxer Daly (Sidney Morgan), and instead of reacting to their narrow escape or cursing those who would fire indiscriminately into a crowd of their own countrymen, they quickly break into a comedy routine involving the pleasures of drinking and just who is going to pick up the tab. A waitress named Maisie Madigan (Marie O’Neill) walks over and instead of inquiring about fatalities or injuries from the gunfire, just sighs and agrees the pay for the men’s drinks.

I suspect the blame for the tone deafness of the scene is Hitchcock’s. Neither the play’s entry on Wikipedia nor several online plot summaries mention a gathering coming under fire, leaving me to suspect it was inserted into the film as a means of establishing the peril of the times. The problem is that once we are made to feel the real threat to people’s lives, it is hard to set them aside and laugh at the idiosyncrasies of Jack and Joxer. Yet that is exactly what the film asks us to do. We watch as Jack makes disparaging remarks about his wife, Juno (Sara Allgood, reprising the role she played onstage), annoyingly quibbles about breakfast, complains about an injury that keeps shifting from his right left to the left, and gets mad at his daughter’s suitor for having the gall to tell his about an opportunity for employment.

We soon meet the rest of the family. There’s Jack and Juno’s son Johnny (John Laurie), who’s lost an arm in the struggle and goes though most of the film looking shell-shocked. And for good reason: a childhood friend has recently been gunned down, and there are rumors that his death was the result of an informant. Their daughter, Mary (Kathleen O’Regan), pops up with her new boyfriend, a lawyer named Charles Bentham (John Longden), who is announced as having the “opportunity of a lifetime” for Jack. This indeed turns out to be the case, as Jack is surprised to learn that a relative has died and included him in his will. Logically, the family concludes that their fortunes have changed, a sentiment that would be more believable if the sound of gunfire didn’t precede each fade out.

From the looks of it, Hitchcock was faithful to Juno and the Paycock’s theatrical roots. Like the play, the majority of the action takes place in the Boyle family’s crowded apartment, giving the film a slightly claustrophobic feel and accentuating Johnny’s growing paranoia. As for Hitchcock, he keeps the camera relatively still throughout the film, and this allows him to film rather long scenes, as well capture as some pretty emotional monologues. There are few of those trademark Hitchcock moments that make later films so legendary. In fact, other than the frequent spattering of gunfire, the only Hitchcockian moment I can think of involves the appearance of mysterious men in trench coats. Unfortunately, Hitchcock undercuts his own efforts by showing us similarly dressed men being behind the gunfire in the opening scene.

Admittedly, I was annoyed by the first half of the film, as few of the characters seemed to be acknowledging the tragedy of the times. Characters don’t have to, of course, and in truth, a man like Jack might not. He a man who has no qualms about his wife being the family’s primary breadwinner and who thinks he’s being philosophical when uttering such pointless inquiries as What is the stars? and What is the moon? Remove the first scene, and they might provoke laughter. Fortunately, the film improves in its second half. The drama is tighter, the family’s actions have unintended consequences, and Jack finally embraces his status as a lazy, powerless deadbeat. There’s betrayal and acts of retribution, both big and small, and a powerful speech that signals the end of the marriage and the start of a life of insecurity and loss.

I admit I was moved by this part of the film, and they slightly explained the indifference I felt during the first half. O’Casey meant for us to laugh initially and to get our hopes up. He meant for us to view Jack as a lovable loser so that we could breathe a sigh of relief for his family when their fortunes look positive. Part of his comeuppance is warranted; the other part you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. In other words, the film should work much better than it does.

So, here’s my hope, that some day soon, a company, perhaps Kino in a second volume of Hitchcock’s British films, releases a far superior version of Juno and the Paycock than the one I purchased. That version, release by a company called FilmRise, is truly an insult to viewers; the top part of the film has been cropped off in an effort to modify it to fit TV screens, rendering character’s heads completely off screen while they are engaging in conversations. There are also sound issues. This could have been easily fixed, yet no attempt was made to reduce the distortion, and no subtitles were provided. My envisioned double dip addresses these issues, while also exercising the film’s opening scene. Just start the movie in the pub. Let the audience laugh at the zaniness, and then leave them heartbroken as reality prevents their dreams from coming true. That would be a movie worth watching. In its present form, it stumbles right out the gate and never truly recovers. (on DVD)

2 and a half stars

Review - Downhill

September 3, 2020

Downhill – UK, 1927

Who do you think would say the following: “This girl has brought a charge…a serious charge.” If you’re like me, you would probably guess someone with the power of the law behind them, like a policeman or a judge. Would you believe the line is spoken by the headmaster of a boarding school? Let me explain the situation. See, after leading his rugby team to victory, a young man named Roddy Berwick (Ivor Novello) is invited to call upon a young waitress after hours. Actually, the invitation is extended to his friend Tim Waverly (Robin Irvine) as well, and it must be said that Tim seems much more excited about it than Roddy. The young lady (Annette Benson), however, is a lot more interested in Roddy, but perhaps she’ll settle for Tim. At the scheduled rendezvous, there’s the kind of music that causes your body to instantly start shaking, rattling, and rolling. The young woman leads Roddy into a private area, but he rebuffs her unspoken invitation to move to first base. Frustrated, she then dances with Tim, and his reaction is quite the opposite. Perhaps out of spite, she invites Tim to return at a later date for a little more running around the bases, which he does.

Some time later – the film does not specify exactly how much – the two buddies are summoned by their headmaster, who utters those ominous words referenced above. Yet let’s stop and ponder that for a moment. Why both of them? At this point, the audience has no reason to question this, but as events unfold, the quandary grows, and the answer becomes increasingly incredulous. For in the Headmaster’s office is the aforementioned young lady, and she has indeed brought a charge. She then precedes to spell out the events of that frustrating night, events that I should remind you the audience saw in real time not five minutes earlier. The Headmaster hangs on her every word, responding with heartfelt empathy and a stern look at the two young men in his care. And then he asks…Which boy was it?

So, let us get this straight. The young lady went to the Headmaster and said she had a complaint about one of his students. The Headmaster didn’t ask what the complaint was or who she was leveling a complaint against. He just brought her in, summoned two possible offenders, and then asked her to tell her side of the story? Apparently so. I watched this scene twice, the second time after I’d finished the film, and it made even less sense the second time around.

Now in the days of silent film, audiences would often play a game. They would try to read the performers’ lips to see if what they said during filming matched either the intertitles or the plot. Often it didn’t. Not being a lip-reader myself, I could not tell just what words the young lady used when hurling her accusation, but if we are to believe what Hitchcock chose to show in the flashbacks, it involved dancing, an innocent exchange of money made scandalous, and the following get-together. Then, in another head-scratching moment, the Headmaster demands to know just whom she is leveling charges toward. She points to Roddy. She later mentions that he is from a rich family and says that they’ve go to “see me through this.” Whether this means childbirth or an abortion is not made clear. And the character doesn’t stick around to explain herself. Her tearful accusation is the last time we see her in the flesh.

So, Downhill is the tale of an innocent man whose future is ruined by an evil, conniving woman with the help of a friend whose first impulse is to protect himself. Well, surely this has been a learning experience for Roddy, and he should now be equipped with the tools to protect himself from further financial predators. Ah, but that would require logic and perspective, two qualities that screenwriter Eliot Stannard apparently decided Roddy did not have. Consequently, we soon find him attempting to woo a famous stage actress (Isabel Jeans) who just happens to have a sugar-daddy who’s in the habit of spoiling her rotten. The jewels, the perfume, the fur coats, the older man – all of these things should have set off alarm bells, especially someone who’d previously been disowned by his father as a result of a rather immoral young lady. Alas, Roddy isn’t thinking with his head; he’s following his…well, I’m not exactly sure what he’s following, but whatever it is, it puts him on another path toward poverty. Poor guy. He just can’t seem to find a decent woman.

I know what you’re thinking. Soon he will. He just has to. I get this notion. This is Hitchcock after all, and almost all of his movies end with the budding of love or a romantic wedding. And truth be told, many of Hitchcock’s early movies had immensely sympathetic female characters. This, however, is not one of them. Downhill takes place in a world of women each after either the all-mighty dollar or unearned adulation, and the Great Depression hasn’t even started yet. Had the film been made just a year later, it might have been possible to see it as a commentary on the moral compromises people make during hard times. Instead, it comes across as more than a little sexist. No wonder Criterion offered it as a Special Feature: It’s hard to see anyone but the most die hard Hitchcock fans having any interest in it. (included on the Criterion Collection’s release of The Lodger)

2 stars