Good month for showings of classic films.
June 3rd: one of the great silent films as the era was coming to an end Pandora's Box, 1929, directed by G.W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks.
June 7th has Robert Aldrich's corrosive war film Attack (1956) and Michael Curtiz's superb The Breaking Point (1950) with John Garfield.
June 10th: Edgar Ulmer's brilliant film noir Detour (1945) and Blake Edwards' 10, an amusing deconstruction of the zeitgeist.circa 1979.
June 11: Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969)
June 13: one of the great war films, Raoul Walsh's Objective Burma (1945) and on the 14th John Ford's moving They Were Expendable (1945).
June 16: Samuel Fuller's tough and tender Pickup on South Street (1953).
June 17: Godard's Le Mepris (1963), with its beautiful use of the widescreen and primary colors.
June 24: William Wellman's great chronicle of the Depression, Wild Boys of the Road (1933) and Chaplin's lovely The Kid (1921),
June 26: two great melodramas (I consider that a positive noun), Vincente Minnelli's Home from the Hill (1960) and Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1956), from the Nelson Algren novel.
June 27th has Nicholas Ray's intelligent Bitter Victory (1957) and the 29th has Raoul Walsh's boisterous period boxing film Gentleman Jim (1942).
Friday, May 31, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Basil Dean's 21 Days (made in 1937, released in 1940).
21 Days was directed by Basil Dean in 1937 but not released until 1940, when stars Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh became better known. I admire Olvier's films when he was younger (especially Raoul Walsh's The Yellow Ticket, 1931) and when he was older (Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing, 1965) and not the pompous self-important films in between (with the possible exception of Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940); when he directed himself he was his own worst enemy. But Leigh and Olivier were effectively low-key in Dean's film.
21 days refers to the amount of time between an indictment and a trial in England. Olivier and Leigh are lovers and when Leigh's former husband comes to blackmail her Olivier kills him in self-defense and quickly disposes of the body in an alley. A defrocked dipso preacher robs the body and ends up getting accused of the murder and when Olivier, the black sheep of the family, confesses to his barrister brother (Leslie Banks) he is told to say nothing, there is not enough evidence to convict the accused and, besides, in class-conscious England Banks would not get the judgeship he craves if his brother confesses.
Banks tries to get Leigh and Olivier to leave the country but Olivier refuses, deciding to have twenty-one days for the couple to enjoy before, if the preacher is found guilty, he turns himself in. There are many elements and scenes in this film that one can trace to the presence of Graham Greene as the author of the script, including the minister wanting to be punisher for robbing a dead man, Leigh having married in Russia to avoid starving (the dead man already had a wife, who testified at the trial), Olivier's struggle with his conscience and the final and fatal events. Dean and cinematographer Jan Stallick shoot the film with claustrophobic indoor sets and foggy outdoor ones that convey the limited mobility of Olivier and Leigh, while Banks and his wealthy friends dine and drink in luxurious surroundings.
21 days refers to the amount of time between an indictment and a trial in England. Olivier and Leigh are lovers and when Leigh's former husband comes to blackmail her Olivier kills him in self-defense and quickly disposes of the body in an alley. A defrocked dipso preacher robs the body and ends up getting accused of the murder and when Olivier, the black sheep of the family, confesses to his barrister brother (Leslie Banks) he is told to say nothing, there is not enough evidence to convict the accused and, besides, in class-conscious England Banks would not get the judgeship he craves if his brother confesses.
Banks tries to get Leigh and Olivier to leave the country but Olivier refuses, deciding to have twenty-one days for the couple to enjoy before, if the preacher is found guilty, he turns himself in. There are many elements and scenes in this film that one can trace to the presence of Graham Greene as the author of the script, including the minister wanting to be punisher for robbing a dead man, Leigh having married in Russia to avoid starving (the dead man already had a wife, who testified at the trial), Olivier's struggle with his conscience and the final and fatal events. Dean and cinematographer Jan Stallick shoot the film with claustrophobic indoor sets and foggy outdoor ones that convey the limited mobility of Olivier and Leigh, while Banks and his wealthy friends dine and drink in luxurious surroundings.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Leo McCarey's My Son John (1952) and Auteur Theory and My Son John by James Morrison
The scene most often cited as the film's [My Son John] most embarrassing, when Dan conks John with the Bible, has never been earmarked by any critic as funny at all, never mind deliberately so. But to a student of McCarey, the Laurel-and-Hardy reverb of the scene is unmistakable -- in its suddenness, in its disconnect between the extent of Dan's Hardy-like pique and the meagerness of his onset (a slightness punctuated by the comic-strip sound effect that accompanies the bop on the head), the little pause on the benumbed aftermath and the frozen double-takes of the stunned combatants, the mismatched cutting that render John's subsequent tumble over the table as pure surreal slapstick.
--James Morrison, Auteur Theory and My Son John (Bloomsbury, 2018)
One way to judge a book on film for me is whether it makes me want to see a film again, and after reading Morrison's book I took My Son John (now available on DVD) out of the library and found much truth in Morrison's book, which gives the history of the development of the auteur theory in France, England, the U.S and applies it to Leo McCarey's My Son John. Much of what Morrison says is familiar to me as one who has watched and enjoyed McCarey's films for years but my experience of My Son John was distorted by the its anti-communist surface. The film seen today has, however, little overt anti-communism and is mostly an Oedipal-influenced story about family and generational differences, similar in many ways and themes to McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (see my post of Dec 19, 2014) while still being as much a part of its time as Make Way for Tomorrow was (1937)
After John tumbled over the table he ripped his pants and had his mother Lucille (Helen Hayes) give the ripped pants to the church's clothing drive. Unfortunately he had left a key in the pocket, making his mother suspicious and taking it with her on a trip to Washington, where she found it fit the lock of one of John's female friends who had been arrested for spying. Meanwhile the FBI has been interviewing John's father Dan (Dean Jagger)and mother, making vague suggestions questioning John's patriotism. When John realizes he is being investigated he makes plans to flee the country but gets killed first (presumably by his comrades) leaving a tape renouncing communism that is played at a college commencement where he was to receive an honorary award.
John's father is a dipsomaniac who is blindingly loyal to the U.S., often singing "if you don't like your uncle Sammy" (originally a WW I song, though Dan seems too young for WW I and too old for WWII) when he gets inebriated at American Legion meetings. Lucille tries to understand John's sympathy for the oppressed while holding a Bible in one hand and a cookbook in the other, her claim that these are the only books she needs an implicit criticism of John's intellectual interests; meanwhile she is regularly given pills for her anxiety by the family doctor. John's two brothers have just left for the Korean War, one of America's most unpopular wars, and John's interest in peace is seen by his father as a lack of support for them. John pays a price for questioning the status quo and thinking for himself.
--James Morrison, Auteur Theory and My Son John (Bloomsbury, 2018)
One way to judge a book on film for me is whether it makes me want to see a film again, and after reading Morrison's book I took My Son John (now available on DVD) out of the library and found much truth in Morrison's book, which gives the history of the development of the auteur theory in France, England, the U.S and applies it to Leo McCarey's My Son John. Much of what Morrison says is familiar to me as one who has watched and enjoyed McCarey's films for years but my experience of My Son John was distorted by the its anti-communist surface. The film seen today has, however, little overt anti-communism and is mostly an Oedipal-influenced story about family and generational differences, similar in many ways and themes to McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (see my post of Dec 19, 2014) while still being as much a part of its time as Make Way for Tomorrow was (1937)
After John tumbled over the table he ripped his pants and had his mother Lucille (Helen Hayes) give the ripped pants to the church's clothing drive. Unfortunately he had left a key in the pocket, making his mother suspicious and taking it with her on a trip to Washington, where she found it fit the lock of one of John's female friends who had been arrested for spying. Meanwhile the FBI has been interviewing John's father Dan (Dean Jagger)and mother, making vague suggestions questioning John's patriotism. When John realizes he is being investigated he makes plans to flee the country but gets killed first (presumably by his comrades) leaving a tape renouncing communism that is played at a college commencement where he was to receive an honorary award.
John's father is a dipsomaniac who is blindingly loyal to the U.S., often singing "if you don't like your uncle Sammy" (originally a WW I song, though Dan seems too young for WW I and too old for WWII) when he gets inebriated at American Legion meetings. Lucille tries to understand John's sympathy for the oppressed while holding a Bible in one hand and a cookbook in the other, her claim that these are the only books she needs an implicit criticism of John's intellectual interests; meanwhile she is regularly given pills for her anxiety by the family doctor. John's two brothers have just left for the Korean War, one of America's most unpopular wars, and John's interest in peace is seen by his father as a lack of support for them. John pays a price for questioning the status quo and thinking for himself.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
NYC Ballet: May 18, 2019
We had not been to the ballet since Jan. and we were eager to see some beautiful dancing on Saturday and boy, did we see it, as NYC Ballet performed two wonderful Balanchine ballets: Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (1966) and Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 (1970).
Each ballet is divided into four sections, three seemingly oneiric and one seemingly "realistic." Otherwise the two ballets are as different as the music and seem to contrast dreams with a kind of reality. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (Brahms's Piano Quartet in G minor arranged by Schoenberg for orchestra) was suggested as appropriate for ballet by Stravinsky; Balanchine was attracted to this combination of modern and classical and combines them beautifully, with the allegro (Joseph Gordon, Emilie Garrity, Lydia Wellington), the intermezzo (Lauren Lovette, Andrew Veyette) and the andante (Megan Fairchild, Gonzalo Garcia) gradually building up to the exuberant rondo alla Zingarese (Sara Mearns, Amar Ramasar), one of Balanchine's most powerful adaptations of folk dancing to ballet.
Tschaikovsky Suite No, 3 started with Balanchine's choreography of the final movement, theme and variations, in elegant classical style, in 1947. In 1970 he added the first three movements, which take place behind a scrim in what seems to be moonlight, suggesting to me dreams of the performers, with the costumes resembling sleepwear and the women with their hair down; the first movement, elegie, had Teresa Reichlen, Adrian Danchig-Waring and six additional women; valse melancolique had Lauren King and Taylor Stanley and six women; scherzo had Georgina Pazcouguin,Harrison Ball and eight women. After these three movements the scrim was lifted, bright lights came on and the stage was filled by male and female corps members led by Ashley Bouder and Anthony Huxley, all parading in mazurkas, spinning in tour jetes and filing in and out of formations, gradually building to an exquisite pas de deux by Bouder and Hall, with the corps following immediately (deliberately preventing the audience from applauding and disrupting the momentum) to build to a pirouetting and jeteing finale. Particularly good was Huxley, who went all out on his series of pirouettes and tours en l'air and fell after the final landing (to his credit, in my opinion, for not holding back in the least).
Each ballet is divided into four sections, three seemingly oneiric and one seemingly "realistic." Otherwise the two ballets are as different as the music and seem to contrast dreams with a kind of reality. Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (Brahms's Piano Quartet in G minor arranged by Schoenberg for orchestra) was suggested as appropriate for ballet by Stravinsky; Balanchine was attracted to this combination of modern and classical and combines them beautifully, with the allegro (Joseph Gordon, Emilie Garrity, Lydia Wellington), the intermezzo (Lauren Lovette, Andrew Veyette) and the andante (Megan Fairchild, Gonzalo Garcia) gradually building up to the exuberant rondo alla Zingarese (Sara Mearns, Amar Ramasar), one of Balanchine's most powerful adaptations of folk dancing to ballet.
Tschaikovsky Suite No, 3 started with Balanchine's choreography of the final movement, theme and variations, in elegant classical style, in 1947. In 1970 he added the first three movements, which take place behind a scrim in what seems to be moonlight, suggesting to me dreams of the performers, with the costumes resembling sleepwear and the women with their hair down; the first movement, elegie, had Teresa Reichlen, Adrian Danchig-Waring and six additional women; valse melancolique had Lauren King and Taylor Stanley and six women; scherzo had Georgina Pazcouguin,Harrison Ball and eight women. After these three movements the scrim was lifted, bright lights came on and the stage was filled by male and female corps members led by Ashley Bouder and Anthony Huxley, all parading in mazurkas, spinning in tour jetes and filing in and out of formations, gradually building to an exquisite pas de deux by Bouder and Hall, with the corps following immediately (deliberately preventing the audience from applauding and disrupting the momentum) to build to a pirouetting and jeteing finale. Particularly good was Huxley, who went all out on his series of pirouettes and tours en l'air and fell after the final landing (to his credit, in my opinion, for not holding back in the least).
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
E.A. Dupont's The Bishop Misbehaves (1935)
E.A. Dupont was a pioneer of the German film industry (Variete, 1926) who went to London and then emigrated to the U.S (see my post of January 27, 2017). In England he made Piccadilly (1929), giving Anna May Wong a leading role, which took place in the Limehouse area of London, an important location for The Bishop Misbehaves.
Dupont was mostly assigned to B pictures in America but used the relatively low budgets imaginatively. The Bishop Misbehaves stars Edmund Gwenn as a Father Brown type who reads mystery stories and stumbles on to an actual one, as Maureen O'Sullivan and Norman Foster are trying to rob Reginald Owen of valuable papers that prove he stole O'Sullivan's father's invention. Foster is an American who has a gun and when he falls for O'Sullivan after seeing her in the cathedral he reluctantly joins her in the attempted robbery. The robbery fails when the bishop and his spinster sister accidentally barge into it and the papers fall into his hands. The crooks that O'Sullivan hired to help her take off with the papers and Foster, O'Sullivan, the bishop and his sister chase them to the Limehouse area where they retrieve the papers and show them to Owen, who puts them in the fire. The bishop admits defeat and says he will have to reveal all to his congregation, causing Owen to finally write a check to O'Sullivan for the money he stole from her father.
I have oversimplified a complex plot with many themes close to the surface: the differences between the English and the Americans (with frequent references to Foster's American accent), the poor versus the rich in a showdown in Limehouse and other class conflicts, the importance of O'Sullivan as a leader of an all-male gang, the influence of the church and detective novels in England, etc. The cast includes many superb English character actors, including Robert Greig, Lucille Watson, Dudley Diggs, as well as Gwenn and Owen. The action takes place almost exclusively at night and Dupont and his cinematographer James Van Trees capture it beautifully in shadows, chiaroscuro and backlighting. The bishop does not actually misbehave, except for a brief grope of Maureen O'Sullvan when the lights are turned out to confuse the robbers.
Dupont was mostly assigned to B pictures in America but used the relatively low budgets imaginatively. The Bishop Misbehaves stars Edmund Gwenn as a Father Brown type who reads mystery stories and stumbles on to an actual one, as Maureen O'Sullivan and Norman Foster are trying to rob Reginald Owen of valuable papers that prove he stole O'Sullivan's father's invention. Foster is an American who has a gun and when he falls for O'Sullivan after seeing her in the cathedral he reluctantly joins her in the attempted robbery. The robbery fails when the bishop and his spinster sister accidentally barge into it and the papers fall into his hands. The crooks that O'Sullivan hired to help her take off with the papers and Foster, O'Sullivan, the bishop and his sister chase them to the Limehouse area where they retrieve the papers and show them to Owen, who puts them in the fire. The bishop admits defeat and says he will have to reveal all to his congregation, causing Owen to finally write a check to O'Sullivan for the money he stole from her father.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Yasujiro Ozu's Passing Fancy 1933
Ozu in Japan, like Chaplin in the U.S., was slow to adapt to sound, making silent movies until 1936. In Passing Fancy of 1933 one can see the developing of his style that would manifest itself in the great films of the 50's, including Tokyo Story (1953) and Early Spring (1956). There are the low-angle shots, the so-called "pillow shots" (narrative interruptions of exteriors without people, often including laundry out to dry) and the detailed depictions of family interactions. But Passing Fancy also includes tracking shots (practically non-existent in Ozu's sound films) and a concern for the illiterate and working class (replaced by the middle class in Ozu's later films).
Few of Ozu's films made it to America during his lifetime -- he died in 1963 after making his final film in 1962 -- apparently because he was considered "too Japanese," though it is hard to understand now what that might have meant. If it refers to his style (low-angled static shots with long takes and minimal cutting within a scene) I don't think that is something that most filmgoers pay attention to, and if it refers to the dynamics of family life I think that, though there are many aspects of it that are specific to Japan there is also much that is familiar to Americans.
Passing Fancy is one of several films Ozu made starring Takeshi Sakamoto as Kihachi, an illiterate marginal and often intoxicated worker who is divorced and has custody of his young son Tomio, played by Tokkan Kozo. Father and son have a contentious relationship, aggravated by the father's interest in a young girl who herself only cares for Kihachi's friend Jiro. The film effectively delineates life in a working class area of Tokyo, where people help and support each other. When Tomio becomes sick Kihachi borrows money to pay the doctor and leaves on a ship for a job in Hokkaido, but changes his mind and jumps off the ship to swim back to Tomio. The film has many comedic elements of family life but it is tinged with melancholy about the present and vague hopes for the future.
Few of Ozu's films made it to America during his lifetime -- he died in 1963 after making his final film in 1962 -- apparently because he was considered "too Japanese," though it is hard to understand now what that might have meant. If it refers to his style (low-angled static shots with long takes and minimal cutting within a scene) I don't think that is something that most filmgoers pay attention to, and if it refers to the dynamics of family life I think that, though there are many aspects of it that are specific to Japan there is also much that is familiar to Americans.
Passing Fancy is one of several films Ozu made starring Takeshi Sakamoto as Kihachi, an illiterate marginal and often intoxicated worker who is divorced and has custody of his young son Tomio, played by Tokkan Kozo. Father and son have a contentious relationship, aggravated by the father's interest in a young girl who herself only cares for Kihachi's friend Jiro. The film effectively delineates life in a working class area of Tokyo, where people help and support each other. When Tomio becomes sick Kihachi borrows money to pay the doctor and leaves on a ship for a job in Hokkaido, but changes his mind and jumps off the ship to swim back to Tomio. The film has many comedic elements of family life but it is tinged with melancholy about the present and vague hopes for the future.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Gordon Douglas's Sylvia (1965)
Don't try to see all the films I directed, that would turn you off movies completely. I have a large family to support and I work on an interesting project only occasionally.
--Gordon Douglas
I've written several times about the films of Gordon Douglas, a craftsman who is interested in his characters' roles in society. He's worked in all genres, some like his science-fiction films the best (Them, 1954), the films that deal with possible future problems; others like his Westerns (Yellowstone Kelly, 1959), that look to the past; some prefer his modern-day crime films (Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, 1950, a year in which Douglas made six films). Sylvia is a film about the investigation into a woman's past for the sake of her future that is very much of its 1965 present.
Private investigator Alan Macklin (George Maharis) looks into Sylvia's (Carroll Baker)past at the behest of wealthy Frederick Sommers (Peter Lawford), who is about to marry her. In a movie influenced by Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) and Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) he digs deeply into her background and appears to fall in love with her before he even meets her. He tells Sommers that he found out nothing, though he has learned that she was raped by her father, abused by a minister and saved her money working as a B-girl and a prostitute to become a poet and raiser of prize roses. After Macklin and Sylvia meet the film opens up from claustrophobic studio sets to natural locations of grass and trees, emphasizing the expansion of their lives. Once Sylvia finds out that Macklin is working for Sommers she confesses to Sommers and the film ends with a kiss between Macklin and Sylvia.
In terms of past and future Douglas uses a number of fine older character actors --Aldo Ray, Joane Dru, Ann Southern, Edmond O'Brien, et al.-- to represent the past, while Maharis and Baker perhaps were meant to represent the future, though Baker, who trained at the Actors Studio, was never able to break out of sexpot roles while Maharis stuck mostly to low-budget films and television (Baker is now 87, Marharis 90). The themes of Sylvia continue to resonate, from income inequality to the roles of women in society.
--Gordon Douglas
I've written several times about the films of Gordon Douglas, a craftsman who is interested in his characters' roles in society. He's worked in all genres, some like his science-fiction films the best (Them, 1954), the films that deal with possible future problems; others like his Westerns (Yellowstone Kelly, 1959), that look to the past; some prefer his modern-day crime films (Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, 1950, a year in which Douglas made six films). Sylvia is a film about the investigation into a woman's past for the sake of her future that is very much of its 1965 present.
Private investigator Alan Macklin (George Maharis) looks into Sylvia's (Carroll Baker)past at the behest of wealthy Frederick Sommers (Peter Lawford), who is about to marry her. In a movie influenced by Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) and Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) he digs deeply into her background and appears to fall in love with her before he even meets her. He tells Sommers that he found out nothing, though he has learned that she was raped by her father, abused by a minister and saved her money working as a B-girl and a prostitute to become a poet and raiser of prize roses. After Macklin and Sylvia meet the film opens up from claustrophobic studio sets to natural locations of grass and trees, emphasizing the expansion of their lives. Once Sylvia finds out that Macklin is working for Sommers she confesses to Sommers and the film ends with a kiss between Macklin and Sylvia.
In terms of past and future Douglas uses a number of fine older character actors --Aldo Ray, Joane Dru, Ann Southern, Edmond O'Brien, et al.-- to represent the past, while Maharis and Baker perhaps were meant to represent the future, though Baker, who trained at the Actors Studio, was never able to break out of sexpot roles while Maharis stuck mostly to low-budget films and television (Baker is now 87, Marharis 90). The themes of Sylvia continue to resonate, from income inequality to the roles of women in society.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940)
Though Blondie Has Servant Trouble is directed and written by series regulars Frank R. Strayer and Richard Flournoy and Arthur Lake (Dagwood) and Penny Singleton (Blondie) are as good as ever, this is one of the weakest of the 28 Blondie films, because it ignores the populist elements that make this such a satisfying series: the trials and tribulations of work, home and child-rearing. There isn't even any "servant trouble" because there aren't any servants, the Bumsteads can't afford them, as tired as Blondie is of housework, cooking, et al. Blondie wants Dagwood to ask for a raise but instead he kicks his boss, Mr. Dithers, in the butt (somewhat accidentally; he thought it was someone else). Mr. Dithers sends Mr. and Mrs. Bumstead to instead stay in a house that he is trying to sell so that it will seem occupied. The servants who turn up turn out to be a sinister couple who felt that the magician who owned the house (and recently died) had stolen all their magic secrets.
The humor, such as it is, consists of walls disappearing and rabbits appearing in hats and some marginally effective slapstick, such as when Blondie has to keep whacking Dagwood in the back with a pillow when he gets a flashlight stuck in his mouth. The Bumsteads worry about their son constantly disappearing as he wanders around the house and Ray Turner plays a "colored boy" sent to the "haunted house" as part of a lodge initiation, and maintaining a certain dignity in a stereotyped role.
For better examples of the effective populism of the Blondie series see my posts of May 9, May 25, June 7, and Sept. 24 of 2018.
The humor, such as it is, consists of walls disappearing and rabbits appearing in hats and some marginally effective slapstick, such as when Blondie has to keep whacking Dagwood in the back with a pillow when he gets a flashlight stuck in his mouth. The Bumsteads worry about their son constantly disappearing as he wanders around the house and Ray Turner plays a "colored boy" sent to the "haunted house" as part of a lodge initiation, and maintaining a certain dignity in a stereotyped role.
For better examples of the effective populism of the Blondie series see my posts of May 9, May 25, June 7, and Sept. 24 of 2018.
Monday, May 6, 2019
Leslie Fenton's Stronger Than Desire (1939)
Someone once said that they don't make pictures in Hollywood they remake them. Stronger Than Desire is a remake of William K. Howard's Evelyn Prentice from 1935. The screenplays are fairly close but if I prefer Fenton's film it's because I prefer Walter Pigeon and Virginia Bruce to William Powell and Myrna Loy, cinematographer William Daniels to Charles G. Clarke and director Leslie Fenton to Howard.
Walter Pigeon is a busy lawyer who, it is suggested, occasionally sleeps with his clients. When the film starts Pigeon has just gotten Rita Johnson off on a manslaughter charge while scorning her overtures. Then Johnson appears in his compartment on a train to Boston and he spanks her. This seems to excite her and they kiss and (presumably) have an affair. Meanwhile Bruce is a bored socialite and takes up with lounge lizard Lee Bowman, who saves her (presumably) innocent notes and attempts to blackmail her. She shoots him; his wife, the always effective Anne Dvorak, is arrested for the crime. Pigeon discovers Bruce's relationship with Bowman, by finding a picture of him that has Bruce reflected in his eyeball, at the same time that Bruce blurts out a confession in court. Pigeon puts Dvorak back on the stand and cleverly elicits from her that Bruce's shot missed Bowman and Dvorak shot him when he attacked her. The jury acquits Dvorak, Pigeon forgives Bruce and husband and wife and young daughter sail for Europe.
This rather crazy plot works on a number of levels, examining gender roles and hypocrisy as well as class differences and struggles. Cinematographer William Daniels (who photographed most of Greta Garbo's films) captures the life and wealth of Bruce and Pigeon with glamorous backlighting, contrasting it with the dingy apartment of Dvorak and Bowman. Leslie Fenton's direction is subtle, making it entirely plausible that Bruce could fall for Bowman, who brings some excitement into her boring upper-class existence.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Ray Enright's Blondie Johnson 1933
In 1933 the studios were getting ready for the Production Code to be enforced and were turning out racy pre-code films as fast as they could. One of Warner Brothers' better films of 1933 was Blondie Johnson, starring Joan Blondell as a crime boss; after all, as Alozo Emmerich (Louis Calhern) said in The Asphalt Jungle, "crime is just a left-handed version of human endeavor." The film starts promisingly, as Blondie goes to the welfare office in the pouring rain for help for herself and her mother, who are living in the back room of a drugstore. Blondie had quit her job in a laundry because the boss has put his hands all over her. The welfare clerk subtly suggests that maybe she shouldn't have quit and, besides, there are many who are worse off than she. She walks "home" and finds that her mother has died and a lawyer and a priest both suggest that some people are rich and some are poor and there's not much one can do about it. Earl Baldwin wrote the screenplay and at that point I was hoping for something like William Wellman's Wild Boys of the Road, which Baldwin wrote and which also came out in 1933. But Warner Brothers and director Ray Enright took a different approach.
Blondie goes to New York and starts small-scale scams, playing a distressed woman who needs taxi fare, She eventually hooks up with minor gangster Danny Jones (played by Chester Morris, one of the less appealing stars of the early sound era who gradually moved to B movies). They gradually acquire more power and eventually kill Danny's boss and take over his protection racket. When Danny is rejected by Blondie -- she's seen too many male bosses slowed down by dames -- he marries someone else. Blondie is convinced Danny "dropped a dime" on her and orders him killed; he survives and both of them go to prison for six years, promising to remain faithful to each other.
Joan Blondell is effectively assertive in her role as a crime boss; she usually has just a supporting role. But Enright and Warner Brothers were apparently wary of going too far with a woman as a crime boss --perhaps they were concerned about the coming code enforcement -- and there are a few shaky detours into romantic comedy. This was one of eight films in 1933 Blondell made, one of four Enright directed, one of nine cinematographer Tony Gaudio shot that year and one of thirteen for which Max Steiner did the music. The film is brisk and efficient at 67 minutes.
Blondie goes to New York and starts small-scale scams, playing a distressed woman who needs taxi fare, She eventually hooks up with minor gangster Danny Jones (played by Chester Morris, one of the less appealing stars of the early sound era who gradually moved to B movies). They gradually acquire more power and eventually kill Danny's boss and take over his protection racket. When Danny is rejected by Blondie -- she's seen too many male bosses slowed down by dames -- he marries someone else. Blondie is convinced Danny "dropped a dime" on her and orders him killed; he survives and both of them go to prison for six years, promising to remain faithful to each other.
Joan Blondell is effectively assertive in her role as a crime boss; she usually has just a supporting role. But Enright and Warner Brothers were apparently wary of going too far with a woman as a crime boss --perhaps they were concerned about the coming code enforcement -- and there are a few shaky detours into romantic comedy. This was one of eight films in 1933 Blondell made, one of four Enright directed, one of nine cinematographer Tony Gaudio shot that year and one of thirteen for which Max Steiner did the music. The film is brisk and efficient at 67 minutes.
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