|
BABY FACE
****
USA
A risqué melodrama,
notorious for having suffered under the newly introduced Production code (it was
the only picture to be pulled from theatres, re-touched and re-released).
It's about a fresh-faced Barbara Stanwyck, who - as lectured by no less than a Nietzsche-quoting
professor - sleeps her way, floor by floor, to the top of a NYC finance
company.
In the recently restored version of the original film, from the
moment 'Baby Face' propositions a train conductor in exchange for a
free ticket (and proceeds to have sex with him with her faithful maid in
the same carriage), you can tell why the Hays office would have had a
problem with it. As played by Stanwyck, she makes for a striking - and,
for the 1930s, rare - anti-heroine.
It's a clever
picture; it's biting and, for what is essentially meant to be a
melodrama with a moral, often astonishingly witty. It's driven by a great
recurring gag, where the camera pans up the office building's windows to
the sounds of St. Louis Blues, as 'Baby Face' moves up in rank. It also
boasts a brief cameo from a strikingly handsome young John Wayne.
dir: Alfred E. Green
wr: Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola
cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook,
Arthur Hohl, Henry Kolker, Douglas Dumbrille, John Wayne
THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN
***
USA
In this exotic melodrama, you will find brutal warfare, a Freudian
dream sequence and Yellowface make-up on a Swede. There is sexual tension
between an American missionary and a Chinese warlord, while Christian fervour
(along with American foreign policy) is subtly undermined. The titles say it's
directed by Frank Capra, the master of gentle, corny Americana, and you
won't believe them.
It was a prestigious flop and one of the strangest
pictures to come out of 1930s Hollywood. It's fascinating certainly,
and atmospheric, but also maddeningly uneven. In the third act, General Yen and his
missionary girlfriend end up behaving in unexpected ways that hint at a
character depth that was never properly established.
dir: Frank Capra
cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Gavin Gordon,
Lucien Littlefield, Toshia Mori, Richard Loo, Clara Blandick
CAVALCADE
*½
CHRISTOPHER STRONG
**
USA
A woman pilot and a married
politician fall in love.
If Arzner wasn't the studio era's most successful female director, this
movie would probably receive no attention today. A line like "If you really
love me, you will always let me do what I want to do" would probably also have no
significance if it wasn't delivered
by a headstrong, independent woman. Beyond these hints of feminism (which
may conceivably be projected on the part of a viewer aware of the
director's gender), this
romantic tragedy is as formulaic and lacklustre as any directed by a man.
The lovers have no chemistry.
dir: Dorothy Arzner
cast: Katharine Hepburn, Colin Clive, Billie Burke, Helen
Chandler, Ralph Forbes, Irene Browne, Jack La Rue
DESERTER
***½
USSR
Workers at a shipyard go on strike.
Pudovkin's first sound film is an odd, experimental work. He refuses to
abandon silent film conventions, only occasionally dumping dialogue, music
or sound effects on top of his images for increased impact. The focus
is on montage and composition. The end
result is not entirely successful - particularly as it loses steam in the
second half - but contains a number of exhilarating, impeccably edited
sequences.
dir: Vsevolod Pudovkin
ed: I. Aravina, M. Usoltseva
cast: Boris Livanov, Vasili Kovrigin, Aleksandr Chistyakov,
Tamara Makarova
DINNER AT EIGHT
****
DUCK SOUP
*****
EXTASE
***
Czechoskovakia
A country girl marries an
impotent, much older gentleman and then seeks satisfaction in the arms of
a virile young farmer.
A naive Freudian melodrama posing as a resoundingly Artistic endeavour
in order to get away with some nudity that proved famously scandalous upon
initial release. Its unlikely secret weapon is its heavy-handed sense of
eroticism that often works somehow in spite of itself. Due to censorship issues,
it exists in versions of various length.
dir: Gustav Machatý
cast: Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, Zvonimir Rogoz, Leopold
Kramer
FEMALE
***
USA
Ruth Chatterton plays a no-nonsense businesswoman, who runs a car factory
and treats men "exactly the same they've always treated women". She swallows men up for supper, then gives them a bonus in the morning
and never sees them again. She coolly rejects the virgins and the
romantics. But in time, she must learn, naturally, that women were
"born for love and marriage and children".
Squeezed in just
before the Production Code set in, this picture oozes rampant feminism and
unrestrained sexuality in the first half, then kneels down before the
patriarchy before the end. It's short, fast, often witty and
consistently, enjoyably ridiculous, as Chatterton hacks away at the one
note, which she commands to great effect.
The score is dominated by an
instrumental version of the song "Shanghai Lil", which formed
the final number in the same year's "Footlight Parade".
At one point, it's played on an organ built high up into one of the walls
of the heroine's art-deco fantasy mansion.
Reportedly William Wellman
directed most of it but had to go without credit. You can still sense his
hand in the speedy, efficient pacing.
dir: Michael Curtiz
cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Johnny Mack Brown,
Ruth Donnelly, Douglass Dumbrille
FLYING
DOWN TO RIO
**½
USA
Dolores del Rio originally had this ramshackle vehicle patched up all for
her blond, bland love interest and her charisma-bereft self. But the
limelight went with the then little-known Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
once they took to the dance floor. The public fell for them and fell for
them hard. Many re-teamings followed.
Decades later, seeing Fred and Ginger tap to something called
"The Carioca" still brings a warm feeling - not that their
hoofing is anywhere near as stylish as it would later be, but because it
carries that poignant aura that accompanies the laying of foundations.
Their number, tipsy though it may be, easily overshadows the ludicrous
climactic setpiece, which has dozens of chorus girls perched atop airplane
wings.
dir: Thornton Freeland
cast: Dolores del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Fred Astaire,
Ginger Rogers, Blanch Frederici
FOOTLIGHT PARADE
***½
USA
A frantic Depression-era showbiz fantasy. James Cagney plays a
borderline-broke theatrical producer, who makes a business of musical numbers designed as 'prologues' shown before feature
films. Cagney's magnetic, unwavering
conviction drives the picture all the way to the three lavish Busby Berkeley numbers at the
end. Probably the least memorable of the year's three
Berkeley-choreographed Warners productions, but still fast-paced and
enjoyable.
dir: Lloyd Bacon
cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick
Powell, Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert
FORTY-SECOND STREET
***½
FRA DIAVOLO
***
GOLD-DIGGERS OF 1933
****
USA
Arguably the best of the year's putting-on-a-show Warners musicals, this
one concerns a bunch of financially struggling chorus girls in pursuit of millionaires.
Displaying a novel, cynical awareness of the Depression, this is
the one that opens with Ginger Rogers singing "We're in the
Money" (throwing in a bit of pig-Latin) along with a bunch of chorus
girls, covered in giant coins. Soon after an infant gives Powell a can
opener to use on Keeler's tin costume in "Pettin' in the Park".
In "Shadow Waltz" chorus girls carrying wired electric violins
and neon lights line up in the shape of a giant neon fiddle. And Blondell
gets to close off the show memorably, belting out "My Forgotten
Man". Although dampened by the presence of charisma-deficit Ruby Keeler and
Dick Powell, it's gaudy, sexy, sassy entertainment, high on wisecracks and sublimely kitschy Busby Berkeley
numbers.
dir: Mervyn LeRoy
cast: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon,
Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks, Ginger Rogers
|
I'M NO ANGEL
****
USA
As a dancing beauty who gains fame as
a lion tamer, Mae West spouts outrageous innuendo, much of which has now become part
of folklore. This vehicle profitably designed to cash in on her popularity
after "She Done Him Wrong".
dir: Wesley Ruggles
cast: Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff, Edward
Arnold, Ralf Harade, Kent Taylor, Gertrude Michael
THE INVISIBLE MAN
*****
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
***
USA
An odd, gruesome yet unexcitable horror film
about a shipwrecked man, who ends up on
the island of a mad scientist bent on transforming animals into
humans. Despite excellent photography and a couple of genuinely frightening
sequences, the picture lacks tension and atmosphere.
dir: Erle C. Kenton
ph: Karl Struss
cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Kathleen
Burke, Arthur Hohl, Bela Lugosi
KING KONG
*****
LADY KILLER
***
LAND WITHOUT BREAD
***
Spain
A graphic, unsettling depiction of life in Spain's poorest regions.
While cold, newsreel-like narration and pretty classical music is running
on the soundtrack, the imagery is of utmost decay and poverty. Very much a
call for a revolution, it's better appreciated for its historical value
than its surprisingly pedestrian crafting. (There is some confusion over
the film's release date. The narrator states the footage was shot in 1932
but this is a lie. The film was both shot and edited in 1933 at a time
when a right-wing government was coming into power. Buñuel decided to
suck up to the new establishment by expressly claiming the picture is a
portrait of the Spain that was still run by the left-wingers during the previous
year. His effort was in vain - the picture was banned anyway.)
dir: Luis Buñuel
LIEBELEI
***
Austria
One of Max Ophüls' early tearjerkers, to do with a womanizing cavalry lieutenant,
who falls in love with an
innocent young woman. The younger Ophüls seems to have been far less passionate than the
elder Ophüls. Here he serves up both Mozart and Beethoven in a foggy old
Vienna, and it all feels rather elegant by default. Later in his career he
infused this type of generic melodrama with a bit more feeling.
dir: Max Ophüls
cast: Paul Hörbirger, Magda Schneider, Luise Ullrich, Gustav
Gründgens, Olga Tschechowa, Carl Esmond, Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Paul Otto
LITTLE WOMEN
****
MADAME BOVARY
**½
France
Flaubert and Renoir should easily form some kind of a dream team, which
makes this particular adaptation all the more disappointing. Reportedly
Renoir was forced to edit this surviving 102-minute version from its
original 3 hour running time. Perhaps the novel's psychological insight
died in the cutting room, leaving behind the story
in a choppy soap-operatic state. Some of the prettier imagery did manage
to survive the massacre, but the actors' heads seem to be just outside the
frame at all the crucial moments and the subtitles are rarely legible.
dir: Jean Renoir
cast: Valentine Tessier, Pierre Renoir, Max Dearly, Daniel
Lecourtois, Fernand Fabre, Alice Tissot, Héléna Manson
MORNING GLORY
***½
USA
A creaky, uneven but entertaining backstage melodrama about a naïvely ambitious country girl,
who comes to
Broadway determined to make it as an actress. Today it's chiefly noted for
earning Hepburn her first Oscar. She gives a fresh, engaging, mostly
naturalistic performance, in stark contrast to the dinosaur antics of much
of the supporting cast.
dir: Lowell Sherman
wr: Howard J. Green
cast: Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Douglas
Fairbanks Jnr, Mary Duncan, C. Aubrey Smith
MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM
****
USA
A shady sculptor's shady London wax museum is
destroyed in a fire - ten years later, bodies start disappearing from a
morgue in NYC just as that same shady sculptor is about to open a
recreation of his original wax museum.
This is a tight, eerie, superbly crafted early chiller, loosely remade as
"House
of Wax" once in 1953 and once in 2004. Even in its day, the
concept wasn't necessarily original - since it owes a lot to German
Expressionist silent horrors both in terms of plot and style - but this
doesn't detract from the experience very drastically. A wisecracking newspaperwoman and
the photography processed in an early form of two-strip Technicolor also add to the fun.
dir: Michael Curtiz
wr: Don Mullally, Carl Erickson
ph: Ray Rennahan
ad: Anton Grot
cast: Lionel Atwill, Glenda Farrell, Fay Wray, Frank
McHugh, Gavin Gordon, Allen Vincent, Edwin Maxwell
OKRAINA
***½
USSR
A primitive Soviet talkie, detailing the impact of WWI on a small town in Russia.
Its heart is set on pointing out the horror
and futility of war, incorporating some sardonic humour and experimentation with
sound to aid its cause. Most of it takes place in an unidentified Russian
Everytown, but it does legitimately attempt to present the issue from both
sides and one of the central figures in the later parts of the film is a
sympathetic German soldier. This appears to be considered Barnet's masterpiece by
most of the people that have heard of him.
dir: Boris Barnet
cast: Aleksandr Chistyakov, Sergei Komarov, Yelena Kuzmina,
Nikolai Bogolyubov, Nikolai Kruchkov, Hans Klering
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII
****½
QUEEN CHRISTINA
***½
USA
The script to this quintessential MGM star vehicle carries admirable - if
not entirely successful - intentions to taint prestige with philosophy and
subversive subtext. As the 17th Century Swedish Queen who refuses to accept
the proposal of a political marriage, Garbo walks like a man, talks like a man, dresses in men's
clothes, renounces marriage and affectionately kisses a girl of the court.
So then, when she is belatedly forced to swoon for sissy-voiced John Gilbert, it doesn't feel
natural.
dir: Rouben Mamoulian
wr: SalkaViertel, H. M. Harwood
ph: William Daniels
m: Herbert Stothart
cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, C.
Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Young
SHE DONE HIM WRONG
****
USA
Perhaps the quintessential piece of Mae West
burlesque or, in any case, her most popular and the one that established her
notorious screen persona.. Set in the Gay
90s, it dresses her as a curvaceous
saloon entertainer and has her seduce various suitors and fend off various
criminals. It's debatable that even La West herself is in
on part of the joke, but it's all in good, bawdy, wisecracking fun.
dir: Lowell Sherman
cast: Mae West, Cary Grant, Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland,
Noah Beery, Sr., David Landau, Rafaela Ottiano, Dewey Robinson, Rochelle
Hudson, Grace LaRue
SONS OF THE DESERT
***
THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE
***
ZÉRO DE CONDUITE
****½
France
Jean Vigo's directorial output amounts to just over 2½ hours of
screentime across a 4-year period, during which he reinvented cinema
several times. Just before he went on to make the perfect, the ethereal L'Atalante,
he directed this medium-length feature about a boys' boarding school where
a bunch of pranksters' increasingly surreal mischief leads to an all-out overthrow
of the establishment. The mostly non-professional actors are encouraged to
act naturally and without affectation, while Vigo himself jumps at every
opportunity to skew things from a stylistic perspective. He has his movie
unfold at an arresting pitch somewhere between gritty naturalism and
off-kilter poetry. It's awkward, crude and rough around the edges, but
it's a delight.
Banned for 11 years (from fear of its causing civil unrest),
it has since proven enormously influential: François Truffaut and Lindsay
Anderson lifted entire sequences from it, while the 1960s Nouvelle Vague
embraced several of its less orthodox aspects, particularly its toying
with [anti-]continuity.
wr/dir/ed: Jean Vigo
ph: Boris Kaufman
cast: Jean Dasté, le nain Delfin, Louis de Gonzague-Frick,
Louis Lefebvre, Gilbert Pluchon, Gerard de Bedarieux, Robert le Flon,
Constantin Kelber
|