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.

A few recent films.

 The Limehouse Golem (2016), directed by Juan Carlos Medina. Here is another Jack-the-Ripperesque murder mystery, a film reminiscent of a number of earlier films such as the Hughes Brothers’ From Hell (2011). In this one, the detective is John Kildare (Bill Nighy) who is unliked by his colleagues and superiors because he is not “the marrying kind.” He strikes up a relationship with the Music Hall star Lizzie Cree (Olivia Cooke) who is on trial for poisoning her husband. Meanwhile a series of grisly murders has taken place in the Limehouse district of London. Kildare thinks Lizzie’s husband, John (Sam Reid), is the Limehouse Golem, as the murderer styles himself, and he sets out to prove this and find an extenuating circumstance for Lizzie’s poisoning her sinister husband thereby getting her off from the gallows and proving himself capable of solving an unsolvable mystery, unsolvable because there appears to be no motive or pattern to the random murders. The plot is convoluted, just like the last sentence. I found the film a bit tedious, but it does have its moments. It also has a subtext of sexual tension, abuse, and repression that is important. Oh, and it has Karl Marx and George Gissing as two suspects in the unpleasant murders. 

Bombardment (2021 – The Shadow in My Eye), directed by Ole Bornedal. This Danish film is timely in that it recounts the story of an air raid gone wrong late in World War Two. Instead of bombing Gestapo Headquarters, some RAF planes drop their bombs on a school killing many children, teachers, and civilians. The planes saw smoke from a plane that had clipped a tower, lost a tailpiece, and crashed into the school. Anyway, the film presents this incident carefully. We get to know a few of the people involved from a trio of children, to a nun questioning her faith, a young Danish policeman who has collaborated with the Germans, the children’s parents, and a couple of British pilots.  The scenes after the bombing are excruciating. The devastating effect of war on the innocent is in full view here, reminding us, perhaps, of what is happening every day in present-day Ukraine. The children here are very good. I especially like their visits to the bakery where a Brothers Grimm-like shopkeeper terrifies the children because of the way she looks. The opening of the film is also powerful and distressing. This scene, in which a plane mistakenly shoots a car filled with women going to a wedding, sets up what is to come.

 

The Good Nurse (2022), directed by Tobias Lindholm. This film reminded me of Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999). Both films are thrillers without flash, without dramatic turns of violence, and both are about corporate malfeasance. The difference lies in focus. The focus in The Good Nurse is on the two main characters, Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) and Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), and the acting is subtle and effective. The low-key performances work well until Charlie’s burst of maniacal shouts of “I can’t, I can’t,” etc, etc. and so on and on. The examination of for-profit medical care is muted, but insistent. Much of the action takes place during the night shifts in a hospital, the characters stalking (well, at least one is stalking) dimly lit hallways. Perhaps the most precise word for the film is “procedural.” The insistence of the two detectives to carry out an investigation against obstacles stemming from the stonewalling hospital officials to the detectives’ bosses on the force is a welcome relief from the crooked cops we have in so many films. The two detectives are Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich). The story is, as they say, based on a true story. Conclusion: stay out of hospitals.

 

Belfast (2021), directed by Kenneth Branagh. Sentimental and nostalgic, yes; effective and even compelling, yes. This is a film about the early days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland told from the point of view of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill). Buddy is a bright innocent wide-eyed kid who loves the movies – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, One Million Years B.C., High Noon, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance all appear in snippets here. He also has an eye for schoolmate Catherine (Olive Tennant). Buddy’s family are Protestant and live in a neighbourhood where most families are Protestant. There are, however, a few Catholic families. Trouble begins when some young thugs attempt to burn out the Catholic families, and then barricade the street to keep the unwanted other away. Buddy finds all this somewhat bewildering, and he begins to be drawn in to the growing melee when the thugs loot a local grocery story. Buddy comes away with a box of soap and confusion. Meanwhile his parents begin to debate whether they should leave their country for somewhere else safer and calmer. The film begins in colour with shots of contemporary Belfast, but soon the colour drops away leaving us with a vivid monochrome courtesy of cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos. The monochrome is a stroke of genius. The hint of black and white underlines the ”either you are on our side or you are the enemy” mentality of the two sides of the conflict, but the muted quality (almost surreal) of the monochrome gives us the sense of mixture, of something soft amid the hardness of things happening in this Belfast neighbourhood. As a film about childhood in a place of troubles, this is absorbing.

 

Miss Meadows (2014), directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins. This is a distaff version of Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974) and its clones. It is also cloying. Katie Holmes plays the eponymous Miss Meadows who clips through her suburban neighbourhood on tap shoes, talks to a blue bird, skips over a young girl’s hopscotch design, does a twirl or two, and shoots a bad guy in a pick-up (literally) truck. This is, mostly, the first scene. The film begins with a quirky sense of the surreal, but it cannot maintain this sense despite trying its best. Ultimately, what we have here is another valorization of gun culture and championing of the vigilante. Pass on by this one.

 

 Some Ishiro Honda to start the year!

Rodan (1956), directed by Ishiro Honda. This is the first of Toho Studio’s “Dai Kaiju” series shot in colour and it looks fine. The film is short on character development and it re-uses footage several times, but the special effects are attractive. The insect-like Meganurons are suitably hokey, and the pterodactyl-like Rodan (actually there are two of them) that eat the Meganurons are just great. They fly and swoop and whip up wind storms with relish. This is all good fun, except that this is all the result of humans creating nuclear weapons and using them. The early scenes in the coal mine before Rodan turns up are handled well and give us a sense of the life of these workers. I like the notion that human ingenuity and science produces such a primitive, visceral, and shocking reaction. The final scene is actually poignant. You will have to see the film to take in what I mean.

 

Varan the Unbelievable (1958), directed by Ishiro Honda. Of the several kaiju films we have seen, Varan the Unbelievable is the least interesting. Yes, we have a guy in a monster suit, a monster that has a passing resemblance to Godzilla, a gathering of ships, tanks, planes, cannon, rockets, and soldiers, and a futile attempt to stop the rampage of the monster as it stomps huts, houses, and sundry other things. It never does get to Tokyo or any other large urban centre. We have no back story for the monster. Where did it come from? Why is it so angry? Why does it not knock down any famous buildings? We have no back story for the few characters we follow as they attempt to deal with the emergency brought on by Varan. The thrashings and crashings are okay, as far as such things go, but the whole affair is rather tepid. Reviews, however, do compliment the film's score by Akira Ifukube.

 

The H-Man (1958), directed by Ishiro Honda. Think “The Blob,” the American film that came out the same year, except that his one is far more colourful, pulpy, and neon-soaked. Perhaps “adult” is a pertinent description. The nightclub sequences and the gangster angle made me think of Seijun Suzuki’s films of the 1960s. The plot has the Tokyo police looking for some nasty drug dealers, but finding themselves following the trail of a strange series of melting persons. It seems fallout from H-Bomb testing mixed with rainfall is melting a few people and turning them into a green gelatinous substance that seeks out other humans to melt them. The film is curious, but effective. The final sequence in the Tokyo sewers has to be seen to be believed. The garish nightclub sequences with their erotic dances are also noteworthy. The not so savoury influence of America seems evident here. In short, we have a hybrid, a mix of monster movie with film noir. The mixture, although odd, is deftly handled by the director Honda. The special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya (Godzilla and many in that franchise) are masterful, with melting people and oozing slime. 

 

Mothra vs Godzilla (1964), directed by Ishiro Honda. This is the one about the clash between Godzilla and a giant moth, and also the giant moth’s two larvae. This is an example of the Japanese kaiju film, most famous for Godzilla (1954). The plot has something to do with the environment, big business, and human stupidity (except for a trio of good guys). Most appealing to me are the Shobijin, twin small girls (fairies?) who often travel about in a box. These twins come from an island in the Pacific that is also home to Mothra, and to a people who dance and chant and dress in extravagant ways. As usual with these films, the surface fun contains serious matter beneath, most obviously the threat of nuclear damage to the planet. The monsters have camp charm, and the battles are furious. Godzilla does manage to destroy a few buildings, but not as many as in some of his appearances. This is a pretty good outing for the big guy, and his expression in this one is particularly menacing.

 

Frankenstein vs Baragon (1965), directed by Ishiro Honda. Imagine a Japanese monster flick that sports Nick Adams as a central character and “Frankenstein” as one of two large creatures duking it out, and you have this film. Really. It seems that during the Second World War, the Germans secretly give the Japanese the beating heart of “Frankenstein” (Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, not the zany doctor himself). Years later this heart is the focus of research at a laboratory that specializes in radiation. Somehow, this heart becomes a boy who escapes and runs about as a large feral child, large and growing larger. The authorities capture the boy and place him in a cage; soon he is outgrowing the cage. Meanwhile an earthquake in another part of town unearths a burrowing creature with a radioactive breath and glowing horn. This is Baragon. We all know that Baragon and the wild boy are fated to clash. They do while Nick Adams and his two cohorts look on with worried expressions. We have much rushing about and much thrashing and tossing of trees and boulders. Young Frankenstein is smart enough to make fire and this he uses to his advantage. Behind all this is, of course, the nuclear past that Japan has experienced. The German/American/Japanese connection is a reminder of the war that resulted in unleashing the nuclear nightmare, and that collectively these countries are responsible for the state of things as Baragon and Frankenstein battle. Thanks again Cole and John for passing this gem along. Baragon spitting feathers and the pig-on-a-rail scenes are worth the price of admission.