A few Tod Browning films.

Drifting (1923), directed by Tod Browning. Browning loves the exotic, and here he goes full oriental in a crime melodrama that dazzles with its sets and costumes, but unsettles with its easy orientalism. It also unsettles with a thrill moment near the end when a horse and rider climb a steep set of steps and just at the top, they tumble off the steps and hurtle down probably thirty feet or more. This was before there were restrictions against harming animals. Anyway, what we have here is a portrait of China as the source of opium, and I suspect the title refers to the state of mind one might have while feeling the effects of opium. One character, the prostitute Molly Norton (Edna Tichenor), spends her screen time drifting while her friend Cassie commiserates with her condition. Two shady Americans are in Shanghai, Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) and Jules Repin (Wallace Beery), trafficking in opium when another American, government agent Captain Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore) appears disguised as a mining engineer. Jarvis is in a remote village to stop the opium trade. He finds himself with two women who fancy him, Cassie Cook and the daughter of the local drug lord, Rose Li (Anna May Wong), who steals the show. The final scene when the battle between the poppy growers, the villagers, and the Chinese government troops is spectacular with the red-tinted screen (sorry I found only a couple of lesser screen captures of this part of the film) and flaming buildings. The film does hold interest, but it is not one of the best Browning silents I have seen. J. Farrell MacDonald takes a turn as a sort of comic relief, playing Murphy, Jarvis’s sidekick, who sets his hat at fifteen-year-old Rose Li. As we expect from Browning, the film does offer instances of the weird. 

 

White Tiger (1923), directed by Tod Browning. The eponymous White Tiger is that wrath that sits inside a person making him or her do criminal things. Here it sits inside Sylvia and Roy Donovan (Priscilla Dean and Raymond Griffith), brother and sister separated while children and later reunited (although they do not know their true identities) through the nefarious huckster, ‘Count’ Donelli (aka Hawkes played by Wallace Beery). Donelli too has the White Tiger inside. The three of them use a mechanical chess player in order to dupe wealthy people and steal their jewels. As things move along, they find themselves on the lam, hiding in a country cottage with another fellow, Dick Longworth (Matt Moore). Here their distrust of each other makes life awkward, until things get out of hand, identities are revealed (I neglected to say that Donelli, aka Hawkes, was responsible for the death of the siblings’ father!). All this is typical for Browning – see for example, Outside the Law (1920) or The Blackbird (1926). We have false identities, betrayal, the hint of incest, a wax museum, a few touches of the uncanny (the number 13, a black cat, and so on), unsavoury characters, claustrophobic settings, the usual Browning world. Unfortunately, the action is somewhat less than coherent. This may be the result of lost bits of the film, I don’t know. The film is, however, essential for Browning completists!

 

More Tod Browning, The Unknown (1927). In this one Lon Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless Knife Thrower. Alonzo's passion is for Nanon (Joan Crawford), daughter of the circus owner. Nanon has a great fear of men, especially men's hands. This makes her repel the advances of the circus strong man, Malabar. She feels safe with Alonzo because he has no hands - or arms. She thinks. It turns out that Alonzo not only has arms, but that he hides them because of his double thumbs on one hand. These thumbs would identify him as a deadly felon, and so he pretends to be armless. Anyhow Alonzo is smitten and to assure Nanon will continue to show affection for him he secretly blackmails a surgeon into removing his arms. When Alonzo, now truly armless, returns to the circus expecting to marry Nanon, he finds that she has overcome her fear of men's hands and has agreed to marry Malabar. Needless to say Alonzo does not take this news as good news. Quite the contrary. Nastiness ensues. Once again, we have Browning indulging his love of circuses and outsiders and strange characters. This is a cautionary tale!

 A few John Ford films.

Hell Bent (1918), directed by John Ford. This is one of many Ford silents with Harry Carey playing a bad man reformed by a woman, here Bess Thurston (Neva Gerber) whose brother Jack (Vesper Pegg) loses his job and joins the villainous band of outlaws headed by Beau Ross (Joe Harris). We have much galloping, some impressive stunts, wry comedy, and gay innuendo. The opening is especially noteworthy. Here we have western novelist looking at a painting by Frederic Remington, “The Misdeal,” and this painting transforming into live action. Later in the film, above the bar in a saloon, we see another Remington painting. The paintings inform not only the western themes, but also Ford’s painterly visual style here and throughout his career. The bad guy, Beau Ross, also references the historical figure, Mazeppa (Byron wrote a poem about him in 1819), who was tied naked to a horse and then ridden until he was close to death. Something similar happens to Cheyenne Harry (Carey) here. We also have Beau and Harry crossing a barren desert, a scene reminiscent of Ford’s later Three Godfathers films. Landscape is essential to the sweep of the film. Although some 20 minutes of the film are lost, what we have is engaging and worth a look for western and Ford afficionados. The scene in which Harry rides his horse into the saloon, upstairs and into Cimmaron Bill’s (Duke R. Lee) bedroom is worth the price of admission. Later Bill and Harry duet drunkenly with “Sweet Genevieve, My Genevieve.” Despite the film being silent, the duet works. This film lacks the experimental aspects of two other Ford films shot around the same time, Straight Shooting (1917) and Bucking Broadway (1917).

 

Up the River (1930), directed by John Ford. When Ford made this film, The Informer was still five years away. The Informer brought Ford into greatness, although some might say it was The Iron Horse (1924) that signalled greatness. In any case, Up The River is not the film one would screen to illustrate Ford's full skill as a filmic artist. Still, the film has its virtues and it does exhibit some Fordian touches. We have the marches and singing men that Ford delighted in presenting right up to his self-parody in The Horse Soldiers (1959) when the confederate kids in their spiffy uniforms march in defiance of Northern soldiers. We also have the trio of men (see Ford's 3 Bad Men 1926 or 3 Godfathers 1948 or others) who share values and aid and abet each other. We have the ritual of prison life (Ford likes the ritual of military life and ritual in general), and we have the touch of sentimentality that Ford always struggles to contain. The three main characters are likeable rascals. Up the River does not have the visual beauty of later Ford films, but it does position its characters well, using corridors and fences and bars and gates and fences and space carefully. In short, the film is about the fine line between being framed and being free. Oh, and I dare not forget the zebra!

The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), directed by John Ford. This is Ford’s only foray into screwball comedy, with Jean Arthur and Edward G. Robinson taking the romantic leads. Already this is strange! The plot turns on mistaken identity, the mild-mannered clerk Alfred F. Jones being misrecognized as ‘Killer’ Mannion, the gangster who has just escaped from prison as the film begins. We also have the familiar gaggle of newspaper reporters who often report “alternative facts.” Lots of misinformation gets tossed about, something that takes centre stage in Ford’s next film, The Informer. Fordian touches include Robinson, as Jones, getting drunk and singing loudly, and the stuff about police and prisons that turns up in earlier Ford films Up the River and Born Reckless, both 1930. The film, however, has a Capraesque quality with little guy Jones finding, after tense goings-on, success and happiness. The film does swerve into violence at the end when Mannion’s minions take their boss Mannion for meek Mr. Jones and plug him repeatedly with a tommy gun. All in all, this is amiable, but hardly top tier Ford.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940), directed by John Ford. Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland fashion a lyrical film version of Steinbeck’s novel of the Great Depression. At times, Toland’s lighting gives us scenes in which the people are ghostly beings, shadow people, whose lives have seen the darkness drawing down. The lighting and compositions constantly take us to the pain and confusion experienced by people dislocated from their homes, sent on the road looking for work, and confronting greed and corruption among those who hold control of the economic system. The film is perhaps a tad preachy, but its preaching is powerful and moving. There are some great Ford moments, such as the scene in the small café where the owners give Pa Joad (Russell Simpson) a break on the cost of a loaf of bread, and two candy sticks for the children. Henry Fonda as Tom Joad has never been better. His face, circled with darkness and shining in the dark, is the face of the people, the dirt farmer existing and surviving by the skin of his teeth. John Carradine as Casy, the failed preacher, has also never been better. The rest of Ford’s stock company also perform well, even with Ford’s tendency to excess and caricature. This is a film with a message, and the message has to do with the corrupt way of capitalism, the exploitation of workers, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. Plus ca change … As Ford films go, this one is near the top. Peckinpah reprises some of the early parts of this film for Junior Bonner. Among the many uncredited actors are Bill Wolfe, Tom Tyler, Jack Pennick, Jack Perrin, and Rex Lease. Jane Darwell as Ma Joad also deserves mention for her heart-felt performance.

How Green Was My Valley (1941), directed by John Ford. The past tense in the title lets us know the past is a fine country, but that time changes all that fineness. The Welsh valley of the title was once green and pastoral, and then it became black and polluted by the relentless coal mining. The story is something of a coming-of-age tale focusing on Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), as he looks back on his younger years in the changing valley. Huw has four stout brothers and a sister, a long-suffering mother, and a stern father. The four stout brothers and the father work in the mine. When the mine owner reduces the miners’ wages, the brothers talk of unionizing, whereas the father thinks such talk smacks of “socialism.” Meanwhile the new preacher has caught the eye of Angharad (Maureen O’Hara), Huw’s sister. We have much singing and much sorrow. One of Huw’s bothers dies in a mine accident, two others leave for foreign lands (Canada!), Huw has an accident that leaves him bed ridden for a long time, Angharad marries the son of the mine owner and moves to South Africa, until she leaves her husband and returns to the valley. The preacher is drummed out of the parish by vicious gossip. Finally, we have another mine disaster and the father, Gwyllym Morgan (Donald Crisp), dies in young Huw’s arms. So much anguish. So much nostalgia. And yet so much faith in family. Shot in black and white by cinematographer Arthur Miller, the film consists of exquisitely composed scenes, and a fine sense of place. Like the later The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, this film is about time and change and the importance of education. The desecration of the valley through coal mining is what Huw leaves behind, taking family lessons and family dignity with him.

3 Godfathers (1948), directed by John Ford. Here’s another Christmas story, rather sentimental and unbelievable. This is a western take on the story of the 3 Magi. This is also the fourth time the story had been filmed, two earlier versions, in 1916 and 1929, being directed by Ford. This 1948 version serves as homage to Harry Carey who had starred in the 1916 version and who was part of Ford’s stock company. He died in 1947, just before filming for this picture began. Anyway, what we have is one of Ford’s most beautifully photographed films. The location shots in Death Valley are as impressive as anything we have on film. The actors, familiar members of the Ford company, are sturdy. We have the 3 bank robbers, Robert Hightower (John Wayne), William Kearney (Harry Carey, Jr.), and Pero Roca Fuerte (Pedro Armendariz). Other familiar members of the company include Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick, Jane Darwell, Ben Johnson, Jack Pennick, Hank Worden, and Francis Ford. The film shows Ford’s sentimental side at its most maudlin. The musical score rings with familiar Ford tunes such as “Shall We Gather at the River” and “Streets of Laredo.” What stands out here is the look of the film. It is, in short, stunningly beautiful. 

Rio Grande (1950), directed by John Ford. The is the last of the Cavalry trilogy and the first of Ford’s films to star Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne. It was shot in Moab, Utah. The film has all the Fordian touches: children, lusty men singing, majestic landscapes, male humour often turning on fights, dramatic stunt work, careful compositions, fluid camera, and a rather complicated use of Native Americans. O’Hara, playing Kathleen Yorke, wife of Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (John Wayne), is reminiscent of the Hawksian woman, a woman in a largely male environment, and a military one to boot. She manages successfully to control events, and in the film’s final shot we see her standing with her husband and Lt. General Philip Sheridan (J. Carrol Naish) watching the troops parade as the sounds of Dixie ring out. Sheridan and Yorke had been responsible for burning her family's home during the Civil War. She twirls her parasol and moves to the sound of the music and she impishly smiles. Also noteworthy in this film is the ‘Roman riding’ undertaken by Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson, and Claude Jarman. The story has something in common with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in that Col. Yorke must find a way to stop a band of hostiles from running amok. He also has to rescue a wagon-full of children who are held prisoner by the hostiles. We watched the film on the spur of the moment, as it were, and I was pleasantly surprised. This is the film Ford made in order to receive the go ahead from Herbert Yates at Republic Studio to make a film Ford had wanted to make for some nine years: The Quiet Man. Rio Grande may have been a job of work for Ford, but it sits well with his world; it has action, nostalgia, sentiment, and the bravery of men! It also has Maureen O’Hara!