Just a few miscellaneous films for May. Politics!

Beanpole (2019), directed by Kantemir Balagov. This film chronicles the effects of war, and these effects are not pretty. Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) is a nurse working in a Leningrad hospital that is filled with wounded soldiers. Iya is also unusually tall – hence the name Beanpole. She has a friend, Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), who has just returned from war duty. Iya has been caring for Masha’s son, Pashka (Timofey Glazkov), but in one of her strange catatonic fits, a result of post-stress, Iya smothers Pashka. Masha takes the news without obvious emotion. Masha has a deep desire for a child, but she learns because of a war wound that she is infertile. She wants Iya to have a baby for her. Such is the plot. The film moves along slowly with a palette that is dour with red and green and a sickly yellow. The setting seems closed in, effectively strengthening the sense of the PTSD that most of the characters experience. What the film offers is a stark and unsettling view of trauma caused by war. The two women are a study in contrast, Masha being outgoing and domineering, and Iya being introverted and shy, trying to make herself less visible than she is. Moments in the film come close to the grotesque. Clearly, war has altered the lives of these people in ways that shatter any possibility of normalcy. This film resonates with our times, sadly.

Official Secrets (2019), directed by Gavin Hood. This is a political thriller that recounts the story of Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a government employee who in 2003 leaked an email from the U.S. government that encourages other countries, the U.K. for example, to assist in coercing several countries to vote in the United Nations for war against Iraq. These were the Bush/Blair years, the time of Colin Powell’s unfortunate speech at the U.N. concerning “weapons of mass destruction.” The film is a procedural that follows Katharine Gun’s decision to leak the document, her home life and eventual arrest, the reporters for the Observer newspaper who track the story (played by Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, and Matt Smith), and the civil rights lawyers who defend Katharine (played by Ralph Fiennes, Indira Varma, and John Heffernan). Hood manages to keep all the storylines moving briskly and effectively. The duplicity of governments is nicely set out and reverberates with contemporary politics, as well as with past events such as the Watergate events of some thirty years earlier. This is a tense and timely film.

Le Havre (2011), directed by Aki Kaurismaki. Anything by Kaurismaki is worth seeing, and Le Havre is among his best. This is a film about illegal immigrants and community and marriage and friendship and goodness. Aside from the story, the look of the film is attractive. Kaurismaki and his crew make the down and out parts of Le Havre look inviting. The colour scheme is distinctly Kaurismaki with its muted blue and grey and yellow. This is a film about life among the humble. The protagonist is the shoeshine man, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), who lives with his wife and canine friend in a run-down part of town. He shines shoes here and there in the city, sometimes with a Vietnamese friend. His wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) is not well, and she goes to hospital where the doctor says she has a terminal illness. Meanwhile, Marcel meets Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an illegal immigrant from Gabon who is on the run from the authorities. Idrissa is on his way to London to find his mother. He is a boy in a strange and frightening place. Kindly neighbours help Marcel protect the boy, although one neighbour is less than kindly, calling the police more than once and ratting on the boy’s whereabouts. Marcel’s last name is no accident, and we have here a comment on policing, community, borders, freedom of movement, and kindness. The people we meet live on a shoestring, as it were, and they are all the better for this. Finally, I note that sometimes miracles do happen! This film is sure to win your hearts. Oh, I nearly forgot Little Bob whose appearance reminds us of Leningrad Cowboys!

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019), directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji. “Gross national happiness,” the motto of Bhutan, informs this film. Taking place in the remotest village in Himalayan Bhutan, the film lets us know that fulfillment (“happiness”) is possible without money or material goods or modernity. Happiness comes in a connection with nature and with song. Singing is important here as a way of honouring local deities and connecting with others, including animals, especially the yaks that provide food and fuel for the local people. Moving at a lyrical pace, the film celebrates community, connection, and education. The story of a fish out of water is familiar and, I suppose, even predictable, but here the location of the shooting, the actors, especially local unprofessional child actor Pem Zam, have charm and charisma. The film does not break new ground, but it does introduce us to a place where contentment, health, and satisfaction are possible, far away from the crowded and loud streets of the city, far away from modern conveniences, and far away from the self-absorbed urbanites we see frequenting bars looking for the happiness they think is available in a glass. 

Sharper (2023), directed by Benjamin Caron. Here is a film for our time, a film about compulsive liars, grifters, con artists, empty people interested only in spondulicks. The plot has twists and turns galore (some predictable) and the film moves from chapter to chapter, each chapter following a specific character, until the connection between all the characters becomes clear. The film is stylish and devilish with the actors – Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Justice Smith, Brianna Middleton, and Sebastian Stan – turning in sly performances, as people who go through life acting slyly. The film begins in a bookstore, and this nice touch might just let us know that we should not judge a book by its cover or a book-buyer by his or her choices. Everything moves along smoothy, if coolly, until an end that spills into absurdity.

1000 Rupee Note (2014), directed by Shrihari Sathe. Budhi (Usha Naik) is an elderly widow whose son has committed suicide because he could not pay back a large debt. She lives alone in a rickety shack that also houses the family of the shepherd, Sudama (Sandeep Pathak). Budhi talks with this family through the flimsy wall that separates their two places. She also has a close friendship with Sadama. The first third of the film is quite lovely; Budhi has little or no money, but she gives whatever she has, tea, fluffy bred, a half rupee, to others, cheerfully and willingly. Her life is simple, and she manages to eke a living by cleaning the houses of the wealthy people who live nearby. Then the local politician, Uttamrao Jadhav (Ganesh Yadav), comes to the village to give a speech. He doles out money to the locals, including a few 1000 rupee notes to the poor widow, Budhi. In other words, he buys votes. The corruption here is a sign of things to come. Budhi and Sadama go to the nearby town or city to spend some of Budhi’s newfound wealth at the market. This is where things go awry, and Sadama and Budhi end up in jail. It turns out winning the lottery, so to speak, is not necessarily a good thing. Of course, Sadama and Budhi manage to be released from incarceration and find the money to return home. On the way back, Budhi takes the 1000 rupee note that the police captain had given her when he released her and tosses it out the window and into the river, a gift to the river gods. This is a quietly effective film, short and very sweet.

 Some Japanese films for February.

This Transient Life (1970), directed by Akio Jissoji. This is the first of Jossoji’s Buddhist trilogy, and it is a blend of softcore pornography and art film. The art film aspect is writ large with a baroque delivery of various camera swirls and angles and movements that seemingly try to outdo Welles’s flashes in Citizen Kane. We also have visual and aural allusions to the likes of Antonionni, Bergman, Godard, Ozu and others. The soundtrack is, at times cacophonous, at times mellifluous (Bach has never sounded more strident), and constantly delivering an array of sharp sounds. Then we have the story, a story of transgression. Masao (Ryo Tamura), only son of a wealthy business man, does not know what to do with his life. Meanwhile, his older sister Yuri (Mitchiko Tsukasa) keeps rejecting the suitors her parents arrange for her. Mom and Pop go on a trip to Tokyo, Masao and Yuri cavort like kids, wearing masks. Masao becomes rather too aggressive and ends up raping his sister. She decides she enjoys the experience and we have a taboo relationship well under way. One day, a local monk sees the brother and sister engaged in sexual activity in the woods. Oh boy. This cannot end well, methinks. Well, it ends with a giant carp dug from the seaside sand by Masao and his deceased grandmother (yes "deceased"). The carp has ‘eaten’ all the people Masao has engaged with, and turned them into stones. Of course, we have the Buddhist content. At one point Masao apprentices to a master carver of Buddhist statues; and yes, he seduces the master’s wife, and then invites the master to share the bed. The master dies in flagrante delicto and his son also dies trying to kill Masao. You can see that lots goes on here, lots of transgressive stuff. I’d like to say that all this coheres into a compelling story, but, alas, this is not the case, for me at least. Sex and death served up raw is what we have. Not knowing anything about Buddhism, I cannot comment on this aspect of the film. The film does have its interest, but it will not be for everyone.

 

Mandala (1971), directed by Akio Jissoji. The second entry in the Buddhist trilogy is another adventure in eros and thanatos, here presented as eroticism and agriculture. The story, such as it is, concerns student unrest and a search for utopia in a cult based on not much more than rape and voyeurism. Once again, we have the roving camera and kinky angles. Early in the film the sets are reminiscent of what we see in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and this held some interest for me. The relentless misogyny, however, is wearisome and distasteful. This is a film easy to dislike. From a technical standpoint, it does hold some interest, but the ongoing rape of young women, the running down a beach, the cavorting in sand, the pseudo-philosophizing of the characters, their vapidity, stupidity, and cruelty are difficult to take. Allusions to the usual gathering of French New Wave directors, and even to the venerable Ozu are not enough to lift this film from the sludge.

 

Poem (1972), directed by Akio Jissoji. This is the third film in Jissoji’s Buddhist trilogy. We still have elements of the pinku genre, but mercifully, this element has fewer moments here than in the previous two films. Shot in stark black and white, Poem tells the story of Jun, houseboy to the eldest son of the Moriyama family. Jun is interested in calligraphy, and he spends his off time making rubbings in a nearby cemetery. Calligraphy and death order Jun’s life. He lives an austere life, refusing to make a trip with his boss to the family home in the mountains because it is not his day off. The filming here seems to me an attempt on the part of Jissoji to render the look of the film calligraphic. From this perspective, what we have is a poetic revery. Things move along slowly and moodily. The family is on the verge of dislocation and dissolution. Poor Jun tries his best to save the family, but he fails. I am a viewer who is unfamiliar with the traditions at work here; for a viewer such as I, the experience is largely visual, although the soundtrack does have Jissoji’s interest in sounds of various kinds, and Vivaldi is also a prominent part of what we hear. All in all, this is quite stunning.

Boiling Point (1990), directed by Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Kitano). This is Kitano’s second feature film, and it lacks the flare of his later work, although it does have the later work’s violence and absurdity, and even a bit of the later work’s visual sense. The plot has two gormless friends who play on the same baseball team and work at the same gas station getting involved with the yakuza. You can imagine that things do not work out well. Beat Kitano appears as a psychotic killer who delights, in a deadpan manner, hitting people, raping people, playing the voyeur, and generally going through life treating others in an ugly and unpleasant way. What the crazy action might mean is anyone’s guess. I am not sure of the baseball metaphor, or is it a metaphor? Perhaps the whole thing is a pile of feces since the film begins and ends with the main character, Masaki (Yurei Yanagi), in an outhouse, suggesting the entire action was what Masaki daydreamed while sitting on the toilet. I guess this is Kitano learning his trade, experimenting with things visual and things violent and things wonky and perverse. His misogyny is difficult to take.

 

Hana-bi (1997), directed by Takeshi Kitano. Imagine Ozu crossed with Fukasaku and you will have an idea what Hana-bi is like. We have the silence, the spatial intensity, often empty spaces, the serenity of faces, some of the compositions, and dislocations in time we might associate with Ozu, coupled with the violence and yakuza gangs and quick cutting of Fukasaku. Take just one strand of this layered film, the shooting of police officer Horibe (Ren Osugi). The shooting is quick and violent, leaving Horibe in a wheelchair. He has thoughts of suicide while he tries to come to terms with his new life as a paraplegic. Someone suggests he take up painting and he does, painting, for the most part, figures with flowers for heads set in bright primary-coloured backgrounds. The wheelchair reminds us of life’s struggle; the paintings remind us of life’s possibilities. Together they remind us the film has something to do with life pitted against art, and art focusing life. The film is awash in significant visual content: feral cats, the sea and sky, paintings, colour, hallways, sunglasses, fire, a kite, faces, snow, blood, sand, cherry trees. The pacing is, for the most part, measured. We follow Nishi (Beat Kitano, aka Takeshi Kitano), a detective, whose child has died and whose wife is dying of leukemia. To make matters worse, his partner, Horibe, is shot, and Nishi feels responsible for the death of another officer who leaves behind a young wife and child, and he owes money to the yakuza. This is enough to depress anyone. Nishi leaves the police force, paints an old taxi to look like a police car and sets out to organize life for himself and his wife. He does so, and the film ends with Nishi and his wife by the sea. This is where they too end.

 Some Ernst Lubitsch films.

Anna Boleyn (1920), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Taking a few liberties with history, this film tells the story of Henry VIII’s second wife. The sets and costumes are sumptuous, and Emil Janning’s Henry is uncannily well done. The same cannot be said for Henny Porten’s Anna; she rarely looks energetic, mostly sporting a dour and even lugubrious expression. Lubitsch moves things along fairly briskly. He manages to deliver spectacle (the film has thousands of extras), while at the same time he gives us a close-up of the principal characters. The film has intimacy laced with grandeur. It runs nearly 2 hours, but the time passes easily, even pleasingly. Henry’s move to become head of the Church takes place quickly. His flirtations are nicely done. And his gourmandizing is hearty. All in all, an impressive early Lubitsch, showing the master learning his trade.

 

The Wildcat (1921), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. This is a visual feast. The sets, the costumes, the shifting screen shapes and sizes, all of this is baroque, if not expressionistic. Lubitsch’s wit and humour are apparent here in abundance. Early sequences remind me of Seven Brides, the Buster Keaton film. Chaplin also resonates here. The story, such as it is, involves two women and two men, who come from two sides of the law. One woman and man are attached to the military outpost, and the other man and woman are members of a mountain robber gang. The whole thing is a spoof. Mostly, however, what matters is what we see, a river of tears in the snow, an outpost with canons everywhere (and I mean everywhere), swords decorating doors and windows, wild clothes and zany uniforms, much running about in various places, including up and down a strange staircase, and the clothing and tents of the robbers festooned with skulls. Here Lubitsch treats the image as a work of art, going so far as to shape his frames in post-production. We have round, oval, jagged, wobbly, diagonal screen shapes. We have portraits and landscapes. The whole thing is rather demented, but delightful.

 

Broken Lullaby (1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Here is an anti-war film from the master of comedy. The first shot of the film shows a parade of soldiers celebrating the one-year anniversary of armistice. The shot is taken through the legs of a soldier, or rather leg of a solider. This soldier has clearly lost a leg in battle. In other words, this celebration neglects the costs of war. We also have shots of soldiers filling a church, their swords lining the exits to pews. The melodramatic plot has the French soldier, Paul (Phillips Holmes), coming to the German town of Walter (Lucien Littlefield), the soldier Paul killed in battle, seeking forgiveness from Walter’s parents. He intends to confess to these parents. What follows is a tale of deception and love. Paul falls in love with Elsa (Nancy Carroll), the fiancé of Walter.  The film registers the agony of those who survive the war. Both Paul and Walter were musicians, and it is through music and love that any reconciliation can happen. This is a relentlessly dour film, but it does have several exceptional set pieces. For example, we have the scene in which Elsa and Paul walk the streets of the German town, setting bells a-ringing as they go. Windows and doors open as the townsfolk peek out and look with suspicion upon this unlikely friendship. Lubitsch takes aim at twisted nationalism and militarism. Traces of the expressionistic film making associated with German cinema in the silent period add to the power of Lubitsch’s vision. 

 

Trouble in Paradise (1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) tells the wealthy widow Mariette Colet (Kay Francis) that if he was her father, he would spank her for attempting to look after her own business affairs. She asks what he would do if he was her secretary. He replies, “The same thing.” Her retort is, “You’re hired.” This is Lubitsch: witty, suave, naughty, and a touch cynical. People behave that way. We have much ado with doors, windows, beds, champagne bottles, clocks, looks, and innuendo. The plot has two master thieves, Monescu and Lady Lily (Miriam Hopkins) planning to fleece the good widow, but things get sticky once Monescu begins to fancy the lovely widow who owns a perfume factory. Which woman will he steal away? Meanwhile, Mariette has two suitors, Francois Filiba (Edward Everett-Horton) and the Major (Charles Ruggles) who provide comedic work as things go along. Everything is sophisticated, clever, and adroitly presented. We have a running in-joke when Monescu runs up or down Madame Colet’s lavish stairway. The joke is that Herbert Marshall had only one leg. The film begins with a street-cleaner singing loudly and dumping a garbage can onto his barge. The place is Venice, city of sophistication and beauty. But we see what a load of old garbage is here. Surface sorcery covers somewhat more crass motives beneath the activities. This is fantasy that has the feel of reality.

 

Design for Living (1933), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Here is an early 1930s film that speaks openly about sex (both the film itself and the characters in it speak openly about sex). Not only is sex spoken about openly, but the flaunting of convention stays right to the final shot of the film, a final shot that has the three principal characters, two men and a woman, driving off into their future together, a menage a trois that is bound to fracture sometime after this smile of an ending. The three characters are two artists, Tom Chambers (Frederic March) and George Curtis (Gary Cooper), and the sparkling young independent woman Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins). The film opens on a train and ends in a car. The opening scene, played mostly silent, is a masterful introduction to these three people, and Gilda’s caricature of the two sleeping men nicely captures the mood of the piece. Witty and sophisticated this film is, as we would expect with Lubitsch. He adapts, with the help of screenwriter Ben Hecht, Noel Coward’s play. The first half or so of the film takes place in Paris in the bohemian quarters of the two artists, soon to be accompanied by the perky young woman. She loves both of them; they both love her. A “gentleman’s agreement” says she can live with them in chaste comfort. Hah! Things go awry. Soon the two male friends are at loggerheads, and soon after Gilda marries another man, Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton), he of the advertising business. Gilda may be married to Max, but she does not satisfy him sexually, and he kicks over a rather obviously phallic plant before she up and leaves him to go off with the other two men -without even a notice of divorce. All this sexual daring is fine, and the film does have its charms, but on the whole, something is flat here. The “Lubitsch touch” is at work, but with less subtlety than we find elsewhere in his work.

 

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. No, this is not a dark tale of a homicidal husband and a curious wife. It is the light froth of a tale about a millionaire and the woman who finally stops his philandering ways. Gary Cooper as the millionaire, Michael Brandon, overacts, and Claudette Colbert as the penniless daughter of a Marquis, Nicole de Loiselle, wears Travis Banton’s creations with verve and spark. The dialogue, written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder from a play by Alfred Savoir, has some witty exchanges and fast talk. The action takes place on the Paramount back lot and sound stages that stand in for the French Riviera. All in all, this is a standard screwball comedy trying to be naughty and coming up a bit stale. Take, for example, the bit about Louis XIV’s bathtub. Mr. Brandon, brash American, sits in it and manages to break it in two without even a brief, “Oh dear, what have I done?” So much for history, so much for a priceless antique, so much for spondulicks when you have so much of it. Then we have Mr. Brandon tossing a copy of The Taming of the Shrew into the fire because he tried to use it as a self-help tome and found it wanting. The characters all have a yen for oodles of money, although we are supposed to think that love wins in the end. The Lubitsch touch is on better display elsewhere; nevertheless, this is Lubitsch and even lesser Lubitsch is more engaging than other makers of such fare.

 

The Shop Around the Corner (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The first of our Christmas films this year has the Lubitsch touch! Two shop employees dislike each other, but unbeknownst to each of them, they are corresponding intimately with each other in a series of anonymous letters. Complications ensue, and grow especially entangled as Christmas approaches. The film is lively with enjoyable performances by everyone involved. The shop owner, Hugo Matuschek, is played by none other than Frank Morgan (yes, the Wizard of Oz). He has a wife we never see, but who plays an important part in the goings-on. Indeed, Mrs. Matuschek provides that touch the film offers, a touch of naughtiness that slips over to one of the shop employees, the obsequious Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut). The interactions of the various characters are delightful, the script subtle and humourous, the sets meticulous, and the Christmas decorations suitable for this time of year! We have no angels seeking their stars here, but we do have a set of impeccably staged scenes with characters who hold our interest, and even manage to communicate a whiff of that wonderful life sensibility. The film was remade in 1998 as You’ve Got Mail.

 

Cluny Brown (1946), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Feed squirrels to the nuts, if you please. This is Lubitsch’s last completed film, and it has much to recommend it. Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the daughter of a plumber who is capable of rattling a few pipes herself. Set in London on the eve of World War 2, the film focuses on Cluny Brown’s struggles with the British class system and her slowly emerging relationship with the Czech refugee, Professor Adam Belinsky (Charles Boyer). Both Brown and Belinsky are outsiders in the social milieus they find themselves among. The script is snappy, as we would expect and the “Lubitsch touch” is as deft as ever. The actors are all agreeable. Charles Boyer has never been more attractive. Jennifer Jones turns in a sprightly performance. Una O’Connor does not have one line of dialogue, beyond some hearty throat-clearing, and she manages to steal every scene she is in. I especially enjoyed Richard Hayden as Johnathan Wilson, the nasal-sounding and rather stuffy chemist who seeks Cluny’s hand in marriage, until she brazenly fixes his plumbing! Lubitsch’s interest in competent independent women is on full display here. Delightful.

 February musicals. February musicals were meant to perk up winter, and so why not close the month with West Side Story (1961), directed by Robert Wise? Add to this that 2020 will see a remake of this film directed by Stephen Spielberg. Can musicals do tragedy?

Pauline Kael's review scorched the earth: The movie was "frenzied hokum," the dialogue was "painfully old-fashioned and mawkish," the dancing was "simpering, sickly romantic ballet," and the "machine-tooled" Natalie Wood was "so perfectly banal she destroys all thoughts of love."

I wonder what Pauline Kael really thought of the film. Actually, I have some sympathy with what she says. The film is hokey. It is also colourful, chippy, and most certainly well-intentioned. Take for example, the requisite balcony scene (the story is, after all, derived from Romeo and Juliet). Here the fire escapes of the New York tenements serve to remind us of the fire burning among the young and disparate peoples of the city, and their desire for escape. The bannister bars remind us that this city is a prison, a place of anger and resentment. The two lovers are trapped. There is no way out. The racial antagonism remains and it is not difficult to understand why the story continues to resonate. 

I had not seen the film for many years, since the 1960s, and yet many of the set pieces stayed with me - Officer Krupe, America, Tonight, and so on. Sure the candy shop seems rather naive now, but it does connect with the previous decade's Bowery Boys films with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. The Bowery Boys frequented the soda shop run by Louis, and the Jets in West Side Story hang out at Doc's candy store. What the Bowery Boys films left unsaid, that the world of city gangs is violent and brutish, finds voice in West Side Story. The scurrying of the gang members over steel and wire fences, through sewers, and across concrete playgrounds accentuate the lower depths. 

The music is memorable, even catchy, and the dancing is earnest. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the dancing is that it serves to surface antagonisms. We are a long way from Astaire/Rogers or Gene Kelly dancing with Tom and Jerry.

 

Now that's entertainment. The Band Wagon (1953), directed by Vincente Minnelli. Fred Astaire was 53 when he made this film, and his age figures in the plot. An aging song and dance man finds himself paired with a young and talented ballet dancer, and she is tall (Cyd Charisse)! They do not get along. Not only are they separated by age, but they also come from different artistic backgrounds. And she is tall! Then they take a buggy ride into Central Park and go "Dancing in the Dark." This sequence brings them together, romance blossoms, dances ensue, and the travelling group has a success on Broadway. Dance breaks barriers, brings people together, blends the public and private. Dance creates community. Through dance love blossoms. The film has many parts, many dances, the carnival sequence, the noir-tinged detective dance, the triplets, the rehearsals, the dance in the dark, and so on. But all this disparate stuff comes together because - you guessed it - that's entertainment.

Singin’ in the Rain, "all elements in this rainbow program are carefully contrived and guaranteed to lift the dolors of winter and put you in a buttercup mood." That is Bosley Crowther writing in the New York Times about the 1952 film, Singin' in the Rain. Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, Singin' in the Rain is a feast of colour and movement and sound. It is also a nice take on the art of film. The plot turns on the transition in 1929 from silent film to sound, and we have loving homage to early films with stars such as Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, and Greta Garbo. We even have a strange dance sequence in which Cyd Charisse, dressed provocatively in green, invokes Louise Brooks while performing a decidedly modern (not 1920s) dance with partner Kelly. The film is buoyant as two set pieces, "Make Em Dance" and "Good Morning," exemplify. The film pulls out all the stops. It is lavish and upbeat. The energy is palpable as when Donald O'Connor dances up a wall or Gene Kelly splashes deliriously in puddles. Jean Hagen invests her role with a verve and stridency just right for this silent star whose voice is decidedly unsuitable for sound pictures. And of course the question of cinema as an art form finds a celebratory answer. The film blends old and new in its play with form. Oh, and I neglected to mention the Busby Berkeley bits too.

Top Hat (1935), directed by Mark Sandrich. Top Hat is the 4th film with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In total, they made 10 films. Top Hat is probably the best known of these films. As the lyrics to the title song indicate, this is a film that simply "reeks with class," in more than one sense of that word. ‘Class’ indicates that the people who populate this film are not only classy, they are also of the upper class, wealthy and artsy. They have servants. ‘Class’ also refers to style. These people have style as their clothes and their surroundings indicate. In other words, this is a film about the well-to-do and the sophisticated. It takes its place alongside a long tradition of comedy that goes back at least to the society plays in the Restoration and 18th Century, plays by the likes of Congreve, Sheridan, and others. Like those long-ago comedies, the plot of Top Hat is baroque; it is convoluted, turning on misunderstandings. These misunderstandings have to do with relations between the sexes, and the plot turns on sexual dalliance and suggestions of transgression. It has its naughty side. This film is playful in its dealings with husbands and wives and those who deviate from the norms of society. One example is Erik Rhodes as Alberto Beddini. Beddini is clearly a gay man. His “marriage” to Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers) amounts to an act of chivalry, not an act of love.

Comedy is a social mode. It begins with a breakdown in a community and ends with a restoration of order in the community. The restoration of order often takes the form of a marriage or a dance. In dance, everything is executed with skill, grace, and timing. Dance communicates order. So too does marriage. After a plot that has played with marriage breakdown (divorce and infidelity), the action rounds to a marriage that signals good breeding and sound morality. Society once again assumes its acceptable form. Beginning and ending with feet, the film is about dance and soul. The feet keep us grounded, fleet, fast, and flourishing.

The combining of drawing room comedy with show business people is also noteworthy. This is America and in America show business is not necessarily a dubious profession. These show people are also society people. They inhabit a fantasy world that gathers America, Great Britain, and Italy together. Venice becomes a fantasy space where class comes together. In this Venice, people swim leisurely in the canals! People who work in the entertainment business can represent working people, yet they are also members of an elite group. The fantasy is that just plain folk can be rich, elegant, sophisticated, and successful.

The fantasy resonates because of the film’s location smack in the middle of the Great Depression. This is a film to lift the spirits. It presents a wish fulfillment world in which love triumphs. In other words, this is the world we might dream about, but never experience in reality. As a dream, the film takes the viewer out of reality for the 100 or so minutes of its running time. For this time, make believe wins the day.

The clothes and make-up and hairstyles, as well as the sets communicate this make believe. No one has hair as smooth and perfectly set as Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. No man has lips as smoothly drawn with lipstick as Fred Astaire. No one wears clothes like Ginger Rogers. The people are live versions of the Art Deco sets. Art Deco exhibits smooth, uncluttered, soft and rounded and long lines. The sinuous lines of dancers are examples of Art Deco. Some of Fred Astaire’s poses during his dances exhibit the Art Deco lines, as do his top hat and tails that accentuate the long lean line and along with the lighting sometimes present a silhouette effect. The Art Deco geometric shapes and lavish decoration have something of a futuristic look, accentuating the unreality of the action. No gondola in the actual Venice looks exactly like the gondolas we see in Top Hat. Art Deco is a style of art that communicates elegance, luxury, and exuberance. It is clean and clear. It is an expression of freshness; it looks forward to a utopian future. This may explain its rise during the Depression years. Art Deco counters the brute facts of reality with a dream of better times.

 Some westerns for February.

A couple of westerns: Wild Horse Canyon (1925, directed by Ben F. Wilson, and Outlaw Women (1952), directed by stalwart Sam Newfield and Ron Ormond. Wild Horse Canyon is noteworthy for star Yakima Canutt’s nifty mounts on his horse and his nifty gun-twirling. The film also has some shots, especially near the end, that turn up in several B westerns of the 1930s. I watched the Alpha Video DVD, and Alpha is not known for the quality of its prints. This one is missing some 10 minutes and, although passable, is grainy and worn. Outlaw Women is a Lippert Production and shows it. The town of Las Mujeres (the women), is run by women, and this pretty much lets you know that the film tries to shift attention from men to women in the old west. Marie Windsor is Iron Mae McLeod; she runs the saloon (what else?) and she runs the town. The saloon bouncer is a tough woman who strikes matches with her teeth and tosses men about. This may sound good, but of course men arrive in town who manage to take centre stage, as it were. Something of a novelty western, Outlaw Women tries hard. It too is passable. We have gambling, saloon fights (think Destry Rides Again), stagecoach robbery, Sam Bass, some singing, and females with guns.

Valley of the Sun (1942), directed by George Marshall. Marshall made a few westerns with comedy, most notably Destry Rides Again (1939). Valley of the Sun is one of these, with Lucille Ball demonstrating the comedic skills that would flower in the next decade with the TV show, I Love Lucy. Here, she is Christine Larson, owner of a café who is about to marry the local Indian Agent, Jim Sawyer (Dean Jagger). Unbeknownst to her, Agent Sawyer has been cheating the Indians out of money and food. Then Jonathan Ware (James Craig) arrives. He is an army scout who has gone rogue by helping two Indians who were incarcerated on false claims of criminality to escape. You can guess what transpires. After some hijinks with a stagecoach, shots of Native people dancing, including the hoop dance, a dusty fistfight, and riding hither and yon, oh and some shooting, things get sorted out. This is a comedy and so no one is inveterately bad. The location shooting is fine, the battles staged well, and the fight between Geronimo (Tom Tyler) and Jim is unusual for this type of western. Indeed, Geronimo is unusual as played by Mr. Tyler. The film tries to present the Native people as more than just cannon fodder. It tries hard, but finds difficulty, as a teacher from my childhood used to say. As a western from the early 40s, Valley of the Sun is pleasantly engaging.

The Tall Texan (1953), directed by Elmo Williams. This is a low budget western from Lippert Productions that manages to overcome its low budget and difficult filming. The plot reminds us of The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and Lust for Gold (1949). A small band of misfits and layabouts manage to find a stream that has gold in it, but the stream flows through a Native American burial ground. The Natives place spears in the ground to mark the boundary beyond which the gold diggers/panners must not go. You know the rest. Despite not having much dialogue in the film, the Native people are careful and intelligent. The eponymous character is Ben Trask (Lloyd Bridges), a Texan being taken back to stand trial for murdering his brother. Of course, he is innocent. Others include the travelling salesman and trickster Joshua Tinnen (Luther Adler), the sea captain Theodore Bess (Lee J. Cobb), the coach driver Carney (Syd Saylor), the sheriff Chadbourne (Samuel Herrick), and the woman Laura Thompson (Marie Windsor). The whole thing has a noirish feel to it, as if Stagecoach was crossed with Pursued and given The Treasure of Sierra Madre treatment. Joseph Biroc’s cinematography is crisp, and the location shooting is impressive. For a small, low-budget western, this one is a winner.

Last of the Comanches (1953), directed by Andre DeToth. DeToth made a few interesting westerns with Randolph Scott. This is not one of them. Here we have fast-talking Broderick Crawford as Sergeant Matt Trainor who leads a small and motley band of survivors across the desert. They struggle to find water, and they must be vigilant because Natives threaten to overwhelm them. The plot is predictable right down to the last minutes when the Cavalry arrives to save the day. The characters are stock, and no one, aside from Crawford, has much to do or say. As for Crawford, he is in his Highway Patrol mode, and he barks out orders and moves his girth around with admirable dexterity. The second unit director is Yakima Canutt, and so the action is well done, even if some of what we see reminds us of Stagecoach (1939). The cinematography, courtesy of Charles Lawton, Jr. and Ray Cory, is impressive, if we set aside some early process shots. The Native Americans provide targets in the shooting gallery for the action sequences. Films like this are wearisome, although I suppose it is useful to have reminders such as Last of the Comanches of the human failure to accept difference. In this film, we have a feeble attempt to redress the balance and present one ‘Indian’ as trustworthy and heroic. This is the boy Little Knife, played by New York-born Johnny Stewart! Familiar faces, such as Barbara Hale, Mickey Shaughnessy, Chubby Johnson, Lloyd Bridges, and Martin Milner make appearances, but none of these actors has much to do other than shoot, ride, and grimace. The film is a remake of Zoltan Korda’s Sahara (1943).

The Stand at Apache River (1953), directed by Lee Sholem. Like many westerns of the era, this is a siege western. A small band of people find themselves in a way station surrounded by Apaches. For the most part, the characters are stock and the action predictable. We do, however, have an attempt to give the attackers more screen time than usual, and to make them a bit more complex than usual. One of the men in the Way Station, Lance Dakota (Stephen McNally), expresses some sympathy for the attackers, remarking that white people take the Indians’ land, kill them, and when they fight back, the White men call this murder. Inside the Station, we have familiar conflicts between those who hate the Native people and those who sympathize, between the sexes, and between Lance, who is a sheriff, and his prisoner, Greiner (Russell Johnson). Colonel Morsby (Hugh Marlowe) is the Indian-hater. Among the group are two women, Ann Kenyon (Jaclynne Greene), wife of the Station’s proprietor, Tom (Hugh O’Brien), and Valerie Kendrick (Julie Adams) who is on her way to get married to someone she does not love. The appeal of such siege westerns for their studios was the modest budgets they called for since most of the filming is on sets, in this case inside the Station. In other words, such westerns are rather static; they do not have the sweep and grandeur we associate with the westerns of Ford or Mann or Boetticher. Still and all, this is a watchable second tier western from the 1950s.

Southwest Passage (1954, aka Camel Corps), directed by Ray Nazarro. Originally filmed in 3D, this western’s special feature comes in the form of camels and their “Arabian” handlers. These camels are on a trek across the desert, a test of their reliability for use by the American Cavalry. Along for the journey are Lilly (Joanne Dru) and Clint McDonald (John Ireland), two felons on the run from the law. Clint is posing as Dr. Elias P. Stanton (Morris Ankrum). Leading the band of cavalrymen and assorted others is Edward Beale (Rod Cameron). The film would be more interesting had the camels and their handlers had more to do with the action. They are, however, merely motivation for the trek across the desert. The focus is on Clint and Lilly and their troubled relationship. The filming is competent enough. Director Nazarro made plenty of westerns both before and after this one, perhaps most notably Cripple Creek (1952), Kansas Pacific (1953), and Domino Kid (1957). The characters are familiar, and the plot predictable. Well, almost predictable. The development of the love triangle works out a bit differently than we might expect. This is not a particularly distinguished western; it could have been more interesting had it dealt more with the Muslim characters and the camels. We do have moments of racial bias, especially expressed by the whip-snapping muleskinner, Matt Carroll (John Dehner). But this is a side-issue here. More upfront is Joanne Dru’s feisty leading lady who shoots as well or better than the men with whom she travels. Of course, we have the obligatory bathing scene, but in this one the lady sports a pistol!

Saskatchewan (1954), directed by Raoul Walsh. Hollywood has had a fanciful notion of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who “always get their man” since the silent era. Here Walsh offers the familiar picture of red-coated, Smokey the Bear Hat-wearing men who protect a land that differs from the land below the 49^th Parallel in its kindly treatment of First nations people. Fanciful indeed. Perhaps not Walsh’s finest effort, Saskatchewan nevertheless manages to tell a familiar story with likeable characters, Alan Ladd as Thomas O’Rourke who has been raised by the Cree, Jay Silverheels as Cajou, O’Rourke’s brother, Shelley Winters as Grace Markey, J. Carroll Naish as the Metis Batoche, and Hugh O’Brien as the American Marshal Carl Smith. The scenery, not the province Saskatchewan, but the montainous terrain around present-day Banff and Lake Louise, is impressive. The action sequences are efficient, as you would expect with Walsh. The plot is preposterous, but colourful. 

Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958), directed by Jodie Copelan. Here is another one about a rag-tag band trying to make it to a Fort on foot while being threatened by Indians. This time the Indians are after the repeating rifles the small band of cavalrymen are carrying. This band meets with another small band of cattlemen and former Confederates as well as a Mexican woman whom the Indians deliver to them as some sort of bait. The action is predictable, the script rather wooden, and the action spotty. Transitions from shots on studio sets to location shots are awkward. The acting is okay; even the young Clint Eastwood as a hothead southerner is not too bad. The lead is Scott Brady, an actor (brother of Lawrence Tierney) who appeared in quite a few westerns in the 1950s, including Johnny Guitar (1954). All in all, this is a film that does not fit its time. The depiction of Native people is retrograde; after all, Delmer Daves’s Broken Arrow had appeared as early as 1950. My advice: give this one a miss.

 Mayerling (1936), directed by Anatole Litvak. This film may be based on the story of the doomed love affair between Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, and 17-year-old Baroness Maria Vetsera, but it is romantic hokum, a sort of Austrian court Romeo and Juliet with a slightly different, but no less melancholy, end. The production is lavish with extended scenes of ballroom dancing, and an evening at the ballet. The ballet being performed is, what else, Swan Lake, another story of lovers facing insurmountable difficulties. The lovers in the story are Rudolf (Charles Boyer) and Maria (Danielle Darrieux). Litvak does not overlook Rudolf’s dissolute activities, his drinking and womanizing. Nor does he overlook Maria’s young innocence. Sets, costumes, performances, the fluid camera, are all spot on, making this an impressive filmic turn. Having acknowledged this, I also admit to finding the proceedings just a bit wan. Charles Boyer kept reminding me of Prince Harry in his hang-dog barking about the constricted life of a royal. His early connection to the newspaper man, Szeps (Rene Bergeron), and student unrest deserved, I think, more fulsome treatment. However, the student protests and M Szeps appear only briefly early in the film. What we have is a sumptuous costume romance telling the story of two ill-fated lovers in snowy Austria in the late nineteenth century.

It Happened Tomorrow (1944), directed by Rene Clair. The penultimate of Clair’s Hollywood films, and in the vein of The Ghost Goes West (1935) and I Married a Witch (1942), It Happened Tomorrow is a silly romp that has ebullient performances by Dick Powell, Jack Oakie, and Linda Darnell. Powell plays Larry Stevens, an obituary writer for the Evening Standard who aspires to greater things as a journalist. His co-worker, Pop Benson (John Philliber), gives him tomorrow’s newspaper, allowing Larry to know what will happen tomorrow so he can write about it today.  Of course, the knowledge comes with a price when Larry reads in tomorrow’s newspaper that he will die at 6:25 p.m. Meanwhile, he meets Cigolini (Jack Oakie) and his niece, Sylvia Smith (Linda Darnell) who perform an act of clairvoyance. The plot moves along briskly, even cheerfully despite impending doom for Larry. We have mayhem and madness, all done in good fun. A prologue lets us know that events will not turn out disastrously. And how could they, this is a comedy! We have newspaper people, police, robbers, restaurant patrons, and others. As I say at the beginning, the film is a romp.

Act of Defiance (2017), directed by Jean van de Velde. This is a film about the South African lawyer and activist, Bram Fischer (Peter Paul Muller), who defended a group of resistance fighters, including Nelson Mandela (Sello Motloung), in what is known as the Rivonia Trial, 1963-64. I was reminded of an earlier film, A Dry White Season (1989), although here, the white lawyer is a leader of the resistance and a communist who tries to hide his affiliation with the defendants, whereas in the earlier film the protagonist is a middleclass suburbanite who has no interest in politics. In An Act of Defiance, the tension arises from the connection between lawyer and those he is defending. Will the prosecuting lawyer discover the truth about his courtroom adversary? If he does, what will he do? We know how the trial ends simply because it is a piece of history. Knowing this does not diminish the scathing account of injustice and brutality perpetrated by the government on people who just want to be free to live, work, and move where they wish to live, work, and move. As a courtroom drama, this film will not disappoint.

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), directed by Dorothy Arzner. “Go ahead and stare. I’m not ashamed. I know you want me to tear my clothes off so you can look your fifty cents worth. Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wives won’t let you.” So says Judy O’Brien (Maureen O’Hara) when the male audience jeers her ballet dancing; they want Bubbles (Lucille Ball) who plays to their desire for titillation. This is a film about dance, high art and low art, women, and both the male and the female gaze. I confess I had never seen a Dorothy Arzner film before, although I have known about her for years. This first exposure to an Arzner film did not disappoint. Arzner was the first and only female director from the beginning of sound (1929) until the late forties when Ida Lupino began directing. Dance, Girl, Dance could have been a standard Hollywood musical romance, but in Arzner’s hands it is something else, something more interesting. Take, for example, the morning after Judy has spent the early hours with wealthy playboy Jimmy Harris (Louis Haywood). She returns home, looks longingly out her window at what we assume is Jimmy returning to his car, but is actually the morning star. She makes a wish on this star, not that she and Jimmy will find happiness, but that she will be a dancer: “Please make me a dancer.” Her mentor in her dance career is Madame Lydia Basilova (Maria Ouspenskaya) who dresses in mannish clothes. The one time she dons a fancy woman’s hat, she is struck down by a car! This is delicious. The plot follows these two women, Judy and Bubbles, and it takes turns we do not expect. Much of the action takes place in a burlesque hall. Arzner’s willingness to forego the familiar Hollywood fare is refreshing and important. Now to see more of her films.

Beau Travail (1999), directed by Claire Denis. Loosely based on Melville’s Billy Budd, Beau Travail is a film of bodies, mostly men’s bodies, faces, fences, lattices, and other signs of confinement, open vistas of desert and ocean, and seething emotion that, like a volcano, lies silent and hidden just waiting to bubble and boil over. The men are members of France’s Foreign Legion stationed in a former colony, Djibouti. We watch the men undergoing training exercises of various kinds, all looking arduous, but carried out by the men in dance-like fluidity. Dance plays a significant role in the film. Take, for example, the remarkable final scene in which the suicidal Galoup breaks into feverish, but intricately beautiful, dance. The sequences of men training are not only dance-like, but also machine-like. We also watch the men doing domestic work: ironing, washing clothes, preparing meals, sweeping, and so on. All of this takes place without much dialogue. What moves the narrative along is the voice over by Galoup (Denis Lavant), something that lessens as the film goes on. Galoup is a wolf on the prowl. He is also the pivotal character in this tale of envy, jealousy, and twisted loyalty. Galoup sets his sights on Gilles Sentain (Gregoire Colin), the Billy Budd character here. Much of what we understand is communicated by facial expression and camera angle, not dialogue. The cinematography is crisp and hard-edged and sensitive to colour, vibrant as well as muted colour. This is a remarkable film, so unlike the kinetic sort of films we are most familiar with. Anything kinetic in this film has to do with the motion of men’s bodies, not with the editing or furious action. There are nods to both Godard and Truffaut evident throughout.

 

 Some more Ishiro Honda films

Battle in Outer Space (1959), directed by Ishiro Honda. Special effects here are courtesy of Eiji Tsuburaya and they are pretty cool. The scenes in outer space and on the moon are effective in a 50s sort of way, clean lines and rocky moon surface with nicely done transportation vehicles that can act like hovercrafts. The miniatures used for trains and rockets and land rovers and so on are catchy, although the cardboard buildings used as stand-ins for New York and Tokyo are less impressive when we see them toppled and torn by the alien rays. The story here is thin and familiar: aliens have set up a moon base from which they attach earth, managing such nifty tricks as lifting up a huge train bridge and smashing lots of buildings, and earth fights back. The aliens, by the way, are something akin to minions. As for earth marshaling its defenses, we have a gathering of nations – including Canada with its red ensign – setting aside differences to coordinate the response to the alien threat. I like the cooperation here, something we see with less forthrightness in Hollywood films with a similar plot. All in all, this is a serviceable contribution to 1950s sci fi.

 

Matango (Attack of the Mushroom People – 1963), directed by Ishiro Honda. Thanks to John and Cole Boivin, we got to see this gem last evening. As soon as I read the blurb on the DVD case, I recognised “A Voice in the Night,” a terrific short story by the inimitable William Hope Hodgson. Hodgson’s story tells of a lonely man floating on the ocean seeking food. Two sailors see him, send him provisions, and listen to his story. The story he tells involves a ship coming across another vessel abandoned and covered with a strange fungus. Soon this fungus has taken hold of everyone on board, and the man telling the story is the only one left. He is in the process of turning into a living fungus. Honda’s version is much the same, only updated to the mid-century, and we follow a group of survivors as they try to stay alive on a strange island. Think Gilligan’s Island with giant mushrooms tempting and threatening our merry band of stranded people; some of these mushrooms lumber about colourfully. The colours are appropriately toned to reflect both the exotic nature of these fungi and the sense of decay and rot in the atmosphere. Both the interior sets on the abandoned ship and the exterior sets on the island are cleverly and impressively designed. The story here is less engaging than the look of things. We see just enough of the mushroom people to want to see more.

 

King Kong Escapes (1967), directed by Ishiro Honda. This is the one with the bad teeth! The villain, Dr. Who, and our hero, King Kong, both are in the need of a darn good dentist. The film also sports a Kong replica, the Mecha-Kong robot who dukes it out with our hero atop a Tokyo tower. The special effects here are rudimentary, at best. The plot has the nefarious Dr. Who (Hideyo Amamoto) attempting to extract Element X from the frozen Arctic so he can sell it to the slinky Madame Piranha, also known as Madame X (Mie Hama). All of this has the distinct flavour of a James Bond film. Indeed, Mie Hama was a Bond girl in the same year’s You Only Live Twice. So we have a Bond villain kidnapping King Kong because Kong will prove to be better at digging Element X than the robot Kong is. Meanwhile Commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason) and his intrepid sidekicks Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada), and Lt. Susan Watson (Linda Miller), float about in their submarine, get cornered by Kong, do battle with Dr. Who’s minions, and generally try to save the day. As things turn out, it is Madame Piranha who saves the day; she has a change of heart and forgoes her evil ways. Ishiro Honda has made slicker films, but this one is lots of fun precisely because it is so cheesy.