Alan Crosland's The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

"I don't believe anything I can't make a jury believe."
--Perry Mason, in The Case of the Howling Dog.

Erle Stanley Gardner's The Case of the Howling Dog was published in 1933,the fourth of his astonishing 373 books, and was snapped up by Warner Brothers for a film.  The film was directed by Alan Crosland and starred Warren William.  Crosland had a considerable career in silent films but made only a few sound films before dying in 1936.  William was something of a star in the pre-code films of the early thirties playing rakish womanizers but is largely forgotten today, except by those of us who watch Turner Classic Movies; William died in 1948 at the age of 53 after appearing in Albert Lewin's marvelous The Private Affairs of Bel Ami in 1947.

The somewhat sleazy William is closer to the Mason portrayed in Gardner's books than the avuncular Raymond Burr of TV fame.  The Case of the Howling Dog film follows the novel fairly closely, with Mason indulging in some ethically dubious chicanery to get his client, Bessie Foley,(played by Mary Astor), off.  Mason has a huge staff, anchored by the reliable Della Street (played by Helen Tremholme), with whom he flirts and, eventually, kisses. The suggestion is, as in the original novel, that Mrs. Foley deserved to get off because her husband, who she was accused of killing, was a louse who betrayed her numerous times and had his dog attack her.

Crosland and cinematographer William Reese brought a crisp visual style to what was essentially a B film, with a running time of 76 minutes; as Perry Mason moved the camera moved with him, giving one the feeling that one was right beside him as he investigated the case of the howling dog.

Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time by Hilary Spurling

Hilary Spurling writes about Powell's own memoirs:  "following up the Dance [the twelve volumes of Dance to the Music of Time] at intervals of a year or two with four successive instalments of these entertaining and instructive memoirs in which he himself barely figures."  Unfortunately it seems as though Powell barely figures in Spurling's biography. Powell's life, like that of most writers, consists of sitting at his desk and writing while occasionally interacting with his family:  his wife Violet and two sons, Tristram and John.  We hear little enough about Powell's family but a great deal about his friends, from the prominent (Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell) to the significant (Constant Lambert and Gerald Reitlinger), from Eton and Oxford to his first job at Gerald Duckworth publishers (Powell's salary subsidized by his father), his time as a soldier in WW II, his book reviewing and the later years of his life at the Chantry, his home in Somerset.

Some of the most interesting parts of Powell's life, especially his time as a screenwriter (when he sought employment in Hollywood and met F. Scott Fitzgerald there) and his role in the censorship trial of Fanny Hill, are better covered in Powell's memoirs than they are in Spurling's biography. Spurling has previously written a guide to Powell's Dance to the Music of Time and reiterates in this biography the real-life "models" for some of the recurring characters, though why this should be of particular interest to anyone eludes me; reading the marvelous and elegant prose of the twelve volumes of Dance to the Music of Time will in no way be enhanced by knowing the details of Powell's life, though one does learn from Spurling every pub Powell frequented and with whom he lifted a pint, as well as the ups and downs of the literary life in London in the twentieth century.

Turner Classic Movies June 2018

The emphasis on TCM in June is the musical, as TCM and Ball State University are offering a free course on the subject.  I am taking the course and I recommend it, since the previous three courses (film noir, comedy, Hitchcock) have been excellent.  I tend to be director-oriented and the musical is generally not (with the exceptions of Vincente Minnelli and possibly Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly) so I am looking forward to the course.  Musicals are shown on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I like, of the ones I know:  Lubitsch's The Love Parade and King Vidor's Hallelujah, both from 1929 and showing on June 5; Lubitsch's The Merry Widow (1934) and Mark Sandrich's Shall We Dance (1937), with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, on June 7; and three by Minnelli:  Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on June 12, Bandwagon (1953) on the 19th, Bells are Ringing (1960) on the 20th.

Otherwise I like John Ford's Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962) on June 9, Douglas Sirk's ironic soap opera All That Heaven Allows (1955) on June 10, and Anthony Mann's historic film noir The Black Book (1949, cinematography by John Alton) on June 22.

Coppelia, NYC Ballet, May 26 2018

Coppelia Act III;  a beautifully proportioned suite of allegorical dances that belong to the mythical world of Coppelia.
--Arlene Croce, "The New Yorker," Dec. 9, 1974

It's interesting to me that Croce spends a good part of her piece on Coppelia complaining about Rouben Ter-Arutunian's design and costumes.  How much Balanchine cared about scenery and costumes has always been unclear to me but I have never found that what Ter-Arutunian and Karinska do interferes with my enjoyment of the choreography.  I generally prefer the Balanchine ballets that don't have scenery or costumes -- Concerto Barocco (which did have costumes originally), Agon, The Four Temperaments (which also premiered with costumes) but what is appropriate for Bach and Stravinsky is not necessarily appropriate for Delibes and Tchaikovsky. Coppelia also has a story, of course, and that can be confusing:  it was not clear to my daughter that  in the second act Swanhilda replaced the doll in Dr. Coppelius's secret workshop, reminding me of when I saw The Awful Truth at MoMA and some of the audience was confused as Irene Dunne imitated Joyce Compton as Dixie Belle Lee; imitations and plots can be confusing.

For this production Balanchine had Alexandra Danilova (she had fled the Soviet Union with Balanchine and had danced Coppelia herself) re-create the first two acts and Balanchine himself created a new, abstract third act which my daughter loved: "it's incredible, so beautiful I had tears in my eyes."  I had seen the original production shortly after its premiere in 1974, with Patricia McBride and Helgi Tomasson, and it was a pleasure to see how wonderful the lissome Sterling Hyltin and the attacking Andrew Veyette were in their parts.  The conductor, Andrew Litton, kept up an impressive pace that Hyltin was able to match with the speed of her brise voles.  The first two acts dragged a bit --constrained by the necessity of telling a story -- but the third act was intense and beautiful and even sometimes charmingly goofy, with Discord and War sporting helmets and spears like something out of Wagner, and Balanchine adding lively music by Delibes from La Source and Sylvia.  The children from the school were coached by Dena Abergel and Arch Higgins;  they effectively and delightfully represented the future of the wedding being celebrated.

Frank R. Strayer's Blondie Meets the Boss (1939)

The second entry in the Blondie series, Blondie Meets the Boss (1939), is both funny and serious (as the best comedies usually are), dealing with issues of jobs and work, gender roles, infidelity and  relationships.  Dagwood inadvertently gets fired when he protests the cancellation of his vacation and Blondie goes to the boss, Mr. Dithers, to get Dagwood's job back.  Dagwood is at home wearing an apron and doing the dishes and feeling that his manhood is threatened when a sleazy neighbor invites him on a fishing trip, with hints of meeting some floozies.  Blondie's sister and her boyfriend come over on their way to a jitterbug competition and Dagwood has them babysit while he goes off fishing and gets his picture taken with a floozy, accidentally bringing home the camera after staying out all night.

Meanwhile Blondie has become a valued member of Mr. Dithers's staff and continues working at the office, on her lunch hour getting the film developed from the camera Dagwood brought home and seeing a picture of him with another woman (he was just trying to keep her from falling out of a boat).  Dagwood is off to the café where the jitterbug competition is being held and is followed there by Blondie, who hits him over the head with her pocketbook and Dagwood staggers out to the dance floor where his sister-in-law grabs him for a partner in the dance competition after her boyfriend gives her the air, claiming that being a babysitter has insulted his masculinity.  Dagwood staggers around the floor as Skenny Ennis sings "You Had it Coming to You" and the crowd goes wild, as director Frank R. Strayer stages an amusing parody of dance competitions of the time.  The owner of the nightclub is trying to flimflam Mr. Dithers and when Blondie accidentally saves Dithers from the deal she gets Dagwood's job and vacation back for him.  The packing that Baby Dumpling and Blondie did in order to leave Dagwood is now used for the vacation.

The film effectively captures the uncertain mood of the time, with unemployment high  and war possibly on the way, a war that will separate husbands and wives, as husbands go in the army and women go to work.  Director Strayer and cinematographers Henry Freulich effectively use chiaroscuro to portray the affection that the Bumsteads -- husband, wife, baby, dog -- feel for their home, a center of some security in a seemingly chaotic world. 

Ernst Lubitsch's Angel 1937

If Angel invokes Pirandello as The Shop Around the Corner evokes Molnar, it is because Lubitsch taught the American cinema the importance of appearances for appearances sake (Pirandello) and the indispensability of good manners (Molnar).
--Andrew Sarris

It took me some time to appreciate Lubitsch, the most subtle and elegant of directors, who brought a not-always-appreciated European sensibility to American films.  His films were often comedies or musicals with flair, usually taking place outside the United States.  Angel takes place in a bordello in France and a country house in England with three main characters: Lady Maria Barker (Marlene Dietrich), Sir Frederick Barker (Herbert Marshall) and Anthony Halton (Melvyn Douglas).  Maria and Anthony are looking for excitement when they meet in Paris and have a brief fling, without Maria revealing her identity.  It turns out that Anthony and Sir Frederick are old army buddies and meet in London, when Anthony finds out who "angel" really is, though she won't admit it.  Maria returns to Paris to meet Anthony but finds her husband there also; for the first time Maria realizes how much her husband actually cares about her and leaves with Sir Frederic in a distinctly not-happy ending.

Angel is not a comedy, though there are comedic elements (especially among the servants, who emphasize proper dress and good manners) but rather a tragedy of marriage, just as Lubitsch's Broken Lullaby (1932) is a tragedy of war.  The Barkers are quite mismatched, sleeping in separate bedrooms and tolerating each other's passions:  Lady Barker loves the opera while Sir Frederick is devoted to diplomacy and horse racing.  Lubitsch started out as an actor and director in silent films and knows how to tell a story with a minimum of dialogue, by facial expressions, camera movement and placement, starting with a tracking shot outside the windows of the bordello and encouraging us to use our imagination when doors are closed to us.

Eddie Muller's Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema

No doubt we need more books like Eddie Muller's Gun Crazy, that follow the details of the making of a film.  We are probably not likely to get them, though, as there seems to be a diminishing interest in classical cinema, at least in this country.  In fact Muller's book was first published in France, in French, before being published in English in 2014 by Eddie Muller's own Black Pool Productions.  Muller's book follows the movie from its beginning as a MacKinlay Kantor story in 1940 in "The Saturday Evening Post" through its purchase by the producing King Brothers, the Kantor screenplay, the script doctoring by Dalton Trumbo, the battles with the Production Code Administration, the hiring of stars Peggy Cummins and John Dall and director Joseph H. Lewis and the actual filming and release of the film in 1949 and 1950.

I have only a few minor quibbles with the book, especially its rather gratuitous attack on the so-called auteur theory:  "I now argue regularly against the absurdity of auteurism."  What he is arguing about, apparently, is the idea that the director is the true and only author of a film, which is a distortion of the auteur theory, originally an attempt to assert the importance of the director at a time when the director's name was usually not even mentioned in relationship to a particular film. Later in the book Muller (head of The Film Noir Foundation, which does excellent work with that particular genre) says "hiring Joe Lewis was Frank King's masterstroke" and goes on about all that Lewis did to make the film intense and vivid. The auteur theory does not intend to disregard the contributions of everyone who worked on the film, though even writer Muller puts most of his emphasis on the screenplay and gives little attention to Victor Young, who provided the score, cinematographer Russell Harlan and production designer Gordon Wiles. Just because Gun Crazy may be the best film Joseph H. Lewis made does not mean his contribution was not the most significant, any more than the fact that Casablanca (1942) is better than most of Michael Curtiz's films does not diminish Curtiz's importance for the film. Muller also does an excellent job showing how influential Lewis's film was on films that came after it but does not discuss the similar films that came before it, including Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once (1937) and Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night (1948)

Blondie, The Great Gildersleeve and the B Movie

Turner Classic Movies is showing several B movie series this month, including Blondie and The Great Gildersleeve.  For those who are too young to know:  the B movie usually ran for around 60 minutes and it was part of the regular package at most movie houses, consisting of an A movie (longer, bigger budget, more expensive stars), B movie, cartoon and sometimes a brief travelogue, until the 50's, when television took over.  Many B movies originated in radio shows and then later became TV shows.

Blondie (1938) was originally a movie starring Penny Singleton and, as Dagwood Bumstead, Arthur Lake.  It was based on the comic strip by Chic Young that continues today, now drawn by Chic Young's son Sean Young.  The film spawned a series of twenty-eight movies, the last one in 1950.  There was a formula for each film -- Dagwood gets in trouble and Blondie gets him out of it --that also allowed a great deal of creativity before the relatively happy ending.  Blondie has too many reaction shots (especially from the dog Daisy) but also is a comedy of misunderstandings not so different from some of Shakespeare's plays or one's own life.  Dagwood is involved with two women named Elsie, one of whom scammed him by getting him to co-sign a loan, the other one is the daughter of a man he is helping to repair a vacuum cleaner who his boss, Mr. Dithers, is trying to get to sign a construction contract.  Blondie, the strong head of the household, eventually gets it sorted out, because "after all, Dagwood is just like a big baby."  Most of the motifs of the comic strip are in the films, including Dagwood's sandwiches and his morning collisions with the mailman.  Some of all this is amusing but the pieces are entwined effectively by director Frank Strayer's view of the complexities of work and family life and their relationship to each other.

Blondie only became a radio show after it was a movie; The Great Gildersleeve was a radio show first, a spinoff of Fibber McGee and Molly, and the first of four movies came out in 1942.  The Great Gildersleeve was made into only those four movies, perhaps because audiences found difficulty identifying with the lead character, a loud blowhard played by Harold Peary.  All four films were directed by Gordon Douglas, a director I have written about several times who was just starting his career and found B movies a good place to begin and to learn.  Summerfield, where the films take place, is dominated by corrupt men who have to fend off man-hungry spinsters; Throckmorton Gildersleeve fights off a judge's sister while trying to keep custody of his orphaned niece and nephew.  There is some amusing slapstick, as a cat and dog fight in Gildersleeve's sleeping bag (he has given up his room to his sister, who is taking care of the kids while Gildersleeve holds off the spinster) and some of the town's leading men fall off a ladder while trying to peer at the governor of the state recovering from a cold in Gildersleeve's upstairs bedroom (it's a long story) but Gildersleeve manages to maintain his dignity throughout the film, triumphing over the judge and avoiding marriage.

I also want to mention that both of these films have significant roles for African-Americans, who find it difficult to understand how foolish some people can be:  in Blondie a hotel porter, played effectively by Willie Best, looks for a missing vacuum cleaner, while in The Great Gildersleeve the family maid, played by Lillian Randolph, makes caustic comments about the family's foolishness.

One More River by John Galsworthy

"No one can spend the night in a car with a young man with impunity.  Can they, Mother?"
   --Dinny Cherrell in One More River (Scribner, 1933).

Dinny is Clare's sister and Clare is being sued for divorce by her husband, Lord Corven, after Clare left him because of his physical abuse (which Clare refuses to divulge to the court).  One More River is the last of the Forsyte Chronicles, three trilogies which began with The Forsyte Saga, and I was drawn to the book by James Whale's elegant film version (see my post of Dec. 7, 2017). Does anyone still read the once-popular Galsworthy, even when the Forstye Saga was shown in 24 episodes on PBS in the seventies?  Is Galsworthy "old-fashioned" and do his books --accurate descriptions of England from the mid-Victorian era to post WWI -- have anything to say to us today? I would contend that in our current era --when history is no longer taught in schools for fear of offending someone --we can and should learn from the past, though Galsworthy's novels are delightful reads in themselves and not, as some contend, made irrelevant by D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.

Galsworthy reminds me of his contemporary, Somerset Maughm.  Both see the good and bad of England in their own time and draw vivid portraits of those who are comfortable with it and those trying to escape it.  As much as one might like to think tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis, (times change and we change with them) there's a wide range of changing and always a great deal of resistance to change.  Galsworthy, in One More River, implicitly expresses the hope that things that need to change (such as the marriage laws) will change and yet will still allow us to appreciate the beauties that remain.

He lay on his back staring at the grass and the bushes and the early sky, blue and lightly fleeced.  Perhaps because he could see so little from that hollow all England seemed to be with him.

NYC Ballet April 28, 2018

We saw three wonderful Balanchine ballets on Sunday.  First was Concerto Barocco.

At the climax, against a background of chorus that suggests the look of trees in the wind before a storm breaks, the ballerina, with limbs powerfully outspread, is lifted by her male partner. lifted repeatedly in narrowing arcs higher and higher.  Then, at the culminating phrase, from her greatest height he very slowly lowers her.  You watch her body slowly descend, her foot and leg pointing stiffly downward, till her toe reaches the floor and she rests her full weight at last on this single sharp point and pauses.  It is the effect at that moment of a deliberate and powerful plunge into a wound, and the emotion of it answers strangely to the musical stress.
--Edwin Denby on Concerto Barocco, The New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 16, 1945

I love Concerto Barocco for many reasons, including its surface simplicity over choreography of elegant complexity and its deep understanding of Bach's Double Violin Concerto in d minor, but I also fantasize that I could do the male role, the only male in a ballet that includes ten women.  After all, no complicated leaps or turns are involved.  Of course I am fooling myself, because the male role in the adagio --beautifully danced by Ask la Cour on Saturday -- is, like all of the ballet, a complexity obscured by its surface simplicity, much like Bach's music.  Ashley Laracey and Teresa Reichlen danced the lead roles, each playing off of the violins in beautiful ways and interacting with the corps as a comment on the relationship of the two lead violins to the rest of the orchestra.

Next on the program was Agon, to Stravinsky's music:
Balanchine heard the rhythmic variation of Agon's many musical canons and visualized them inventively, not just imitatively.
---Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: a journey of invention.

Agon is Greek for contest or gathering and there is much of both in Stravinsky's music and Balanchine's ballet.  The famous pas de deux, originally danced by Arthur Mitchell and Diana Adams in1957, was danced on Saturday by Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle and implied both a competition and an intense physical relationship.  Balanchine was far ahead of his time not only in the original black and white couple but in all eight women in the ballet asserting their sexuality and power.  The ballet has a dizzyingly number of combinations of men and women --duos, trios quartets--asserting complicated relationships, with four men at the beginning and ending with their backs to the audience.

The third ballet was The Four Temperaments.
As a conception for a ballet, the four temperaments, or humors of the blood, have been realized with a profundity that doesn't depend on the intellectual powers of either the audience or the dancers.
--Arlene Croce, The New  Yorker, Dec. 8, 1975

Hindemith's score for The Four Temperaments was commissioned by Balanchine himself with money he had received from his Broadway choreography and the ballet premiered on Nov.. 20, 1946.  Each time I see this ballet I plan to concentrate on what distinguishes the separate temperaments --melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic, choleric -- but I always get caught up in the strange and compelling beauty of the piece, with its Egyptian and other foreign motifs and its unusual movement of bodies.  Perhaps it was a mistake to put this on the same program with the Stravinsky -- since the two modern composers can seem dated compared to Bach -- but the ballet truly soars in its ritualistic climax, with some bodies lifted high into the air and others flat on the ground.