D. Arnold Pouter
B&W
That rarest of things: an English Boris Karlofff movie.
Boris Karloff just seems such an international figure. Even though his career was predominantly American, the name he took and that sinister screen persona made it seem like he was from some strange forgotten land. Bela Lugosi had a similar name, but he had an accent which gave away that he was from a fixed Eastern European locale. Karloff with his more mid-Atlantic tones was just impossible to place (and you certainly wouldn't have imagined he was from Catford in South East London. Somehow I can’t imagine Karloff on a Cockney fruit stall). No, Boris Karloff the star of scary movies hailed from some mysterious isle, maybe the same one as King Kong, and no doubt he hatched from an egg fully grown as the dapper, sinister and yet vulnerable gentleman we know.
Here he is back home, in that version of England which existed in a film studio’s polite and ordered mind, as a man who occupies the corner stool of a saloon bar and tells eerie tales. (In many ways like P.G. Wodehouse's Mr Mulliner, without the jokes, but with a surprising amount of horror and death.) Karloff relates these stories with a sinister smile on his face, his voice rumbling with menace, his hand forever stroking a scary, one-eyed black dog. Indeed what gives away that this pub isn't quite normal is the fact that everyone else in the pub just accepts Boris as one of them and don't run a mile from him – while in reality his presence would make any pint of warm ale feel uncomfortably chilled.
On a stormy night a charisma void of an actor, Robert Wainwright, stops by this country pub for a gin and water and a relief from his long drive. Boris has already embarked on that evening’s tales and the young man is drawn into listening, and so begins a portmanteau of stories - one about a young man breaking his father's heart by running away and the comeuppance that falls upon him; one is an act of cowardice in the war which has terrible consequences, and one is a man who breaks his fiancée’s heart in a tale which leads to murder and destruction. The realisation slowly dawns on this young visitor to the pub that all of these are all sinister twists on events which have happened in his own life.
The confrontation between him and Karloff swiftly escalates beyond all reasonable disbelief, and the (SPOILER ALERT) revelation that its Karloff's dog who is the sinister force is too silly for words, but in the main this is a scary and tense film where Karloff comes gloriously home, purring at his most superbly sinister in an unmistakably British setting.
At the end the young man runs into the darkness and the pub goes back to how it was, presumably before a name change and a visit from those poor young lads in ‘An American Werewolf in London’.
Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940s. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
There Be Monsters!!! (1945)
D. Raoul Walsh
B&W
James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart: two actors so much of their age. Two actors who specialised in ripped from the headlines dramas of the thirties, before the latter became the definitive leading man of the 1940s. If you think of either, it’s likely to be with sharp suits, spats, guns and snarling faces. That’s why ‘The Oklahoma Kid’, where the two play cowboys and try to send the whole thing up, is held as something of a cult classic. An example of how badly wrong casting can go. It’s odd then that their last onscreen appearance together, a film that makes ‘The Oklahoma Kid’ look like it has the gravitas of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in comparison, is so obscure. As ‘There Be Monsters!!!’ isn’t just Cagney and Bogart as cowboys, it’s Cagney and Bogart as a proto Butch and Sundance taking on Nazis and dinosaurs in the Arizona desert.
Our heroes are cowboys at the turn of the Twentieth Century, rogues perhaps, but essentially that heart of gold type outlaw so prominent in the movies but markedly less visible in real life. Framed for a crime they didn’t commit by a ruthless sheriff (Lon Chaney Jr – playing it straight and probably delighted not to be playing the monster role in a film with ‘monster’ in the title), they break out of their latest prison cell, ride into the desert and straight into a mist which takes them to – who the hell knows? The film isn’t clear on that point and it will only hurt your head to think about it. But before long our heroes are battling pterodactyls, tyrannosauruses and an oddly ferocious brontosaurus. What’s more, they find themselves up against Nazis, who are trying to capture the biggest carnivore of all – the mighty Galactisaurous – and have it lead their army to victory.
So we have dinosaurs and Nazis, at which point we rub our aching heads and presume that our heroes have somehow gone simultaneously back and forward in time. What’s really peculiar though is that Cagney and Bogart – despite being turn of the century roughneck men – instantly recognise the Nazis. They know who they are, what they’re up to and set out to stop them with the help and hindrance of the various dinosaurs.
It really is ridiculously potty – but if you just go with it, a ridiculously potty and exciting ride. In the distance Willis O’Brien’s dinosaurs are even more impressive than they were in ‘King Kong’. It’s when they’re up close that they cause problems, as it can only raise smiles to watch such tough guy actors (and various blokes faking German accents) pretending to be menaced by pieces of rubber. But they do give it their all even in those scenes. Bogart makes these monsters seem real by sneering them in much the same way he does Peter Lorre; while Cagney acts the hell out of a confrontation with the most ridiculous and rubbery snake seen this side of an Ed Wood movie, as if defying the audience to find anything at all silly in what he’s doing. And that commitment is what makes this film so wonderful; throughout it our two leads really do give their all. Even when they’re winking at the camera and saying: “Hey! We know this is nonsense, but it’s fun!”
Raoul Walsh directs with panache and a ceaseless sense of adventure, and if you remove your brain and your sneer at the start, it’s most entertaining. But clearly we needed special effects to advance and Steven Spielberg to arrive to make this kind of nonsense as beautiful and as gripping as it could be.
B&W
James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart: two actors so much of their age. Two actors who specialised in ripped from the headlines dramas of the thirties, before the latter became the definitive leading man of the 1940s. If you think of either, it’s likely to be with sharp suits, spats, guns and snarling faces. That’s why ‘The Oklahoma Kid’, where the two play cowboys and try to send the whole thing up, is held as something of a cult classic. An example of how badly wrong casting can go. It’s odd then that their last onscreen appearance together, a film that makes ‘The Oklahoma Kid’ look like it has the gravitas of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in comparison, is so obscure. As ‘There Be Monsters!!!’ isn’t just Cagney and Bogart as cowboys, it’s Cagney and Bogart as a proto Butch and Sundance taking on Nazis and dinosaurs in the Arizona desert.
Our heroes are cowboys at the turn of the Twentieth Century, rogues perhaps, but essentially that heart of gold type outlaw so prominent in the movies but markedly less visible in real life. Framed for a crime they didn’t commit by a ruthless sheriff (Lon Chaney Jr – playing it straight and probably delighted not to be playing the monster role in a film with ‘monster’ in the title), they break out of their latest prison cell, ride into the desert and straight into a mist which takes them to – who the hell knows? The film isn’t clear on that point and it will only hurt your head to think about it. But before long our heroes are battling pterodactyls, tyrannosauruses and an oddly ferocious brontosaurus. What’s more, they find themselves up against Nazis, who are trying to capture the biggest carnivore of all – the mighty Galactisaurous – and have it lead their army to victory.
So we have dinosaurs and Nazis, at which point we rub our aching heads and presume that our heroes have somehow gone simultaneously back and forward in time. What’s really peculiar though is that Cagney and Bogart – despite being turn of the century roughneck men – instantly recognise the Nazis. They know who they are, what they’re up to and set out to stop them with the help and hindrance of the various dinosaurs.
It really is ridiculously potty – but if you just go with it, a ridiculously potty and exciting ride. In the distance Willis O’Brien’s dinosaurs are even more impressive than they were in ‘King Kong’. It’s when they’re up close that they cause problems, as it can only raise smiles to watch such tough guy actors (and various blokes faking German accents) pretending to be menaced by pieces of rubber. But they do give it their all even in those scenes. Bogart makes these monsters seem real by sneering them in much the same way he does Peter Lorre; while Cagney acts the hell out of a confrontation with the most ridiculous and rubbery snake seen this side of an Ed Wood movie, as if defying the audience to find anything at all silly in what he’s doing. And that commitment is what makes this film so wonderful; throughout it our two leads really do give their all. Even when they’re winking at the camera and saying: “Hey! We know this is nonsense, but it’s fun!”
Raoul Walsh directs with panache and a ceaseless sense of adventure, and if you remove your brain and your sneer at the start, it’s most entertaining. But clearly we needed special effects to advance and Steven Spielberg to arrive to make this kind of nonsense as beautiful and as gripping as it could be.
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Honeymoon of Horrors (1945)
D. Jack van Dougel
B&W
‘Honeymoon of Horrors’ is a dark comedy of the type that you just feel Cary Grant wished he did more of. Obviously he knew his image and was fond of his image as it paid for him to be, well, Cary Grant, but there was always something about him that strained to be darker than that image. You can see it in the films he made with Alfred Hitchcock; you see it in the films he made with Howard Hawks. But this is one of those rare movies where he just really goes for it. From talking of the horrendous fate meted out to Archibald Leach in ‘His Girl Friday’, to murderous aunts in ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’, to bloody honeymoons here: this, my friends, is the dark side of Cary Grant.
Upping the tempo of his normal screen persona, this is Grant as full-on frazzled. The most famous example of a frazzled Cary Grant is of course ‘North by Northwest’, but there he’s a proto James Bond, which you have to admit is pretty damn suave. ‘Honeymoon of Horrors’ though is an increasingly macabre comedy, where laughs and deaths are piled on top of each other in frantic and haphazard fashion, and Grant is frazzled to the max. At points he doesn’t even look like Cary Grant: his face is grubby, that normally pristine hair finds itself ruffled and spiked, and his eyes are well and truly bulging. This is a Cary Grant lost in a situation he can’t control, as a newly-wed husband who starts to believe that his wife is a mass murderer.
The fact that the wife is played by Joan Fontaine makes this a delicious spin on Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’. In that film Joan plays a newlywed who starts to be suspicious about the murderous intentions of her husband, Cary Grant, suspicions which build to a disappointing ending. Here it’s Joan Fontaine as the suspected murderess, but it still builds to a disappointing ending. It’s much like Karl Marx said: good Hollywood ideas repeat themselves, first as suspense and then as farce.
Starting out as what looks like a blissful Hollywood romance, the two drive to the beautiful country hotel they’re staying in for their honeymoon, all loved up and with dreams of their future. They check in with the charming receptionist, kiss as they go up to their hotel room and everything looks rosy. But there’s a guest in reception who seems to recognise Fontaine and greets her by another name, before long he’s dead, and not long after all the other guests start dropping like particularly diseased flies. Grant grows suspicious that his lovely bride is responsible, and investigates even when trying to throw the suspicions of others away from her.
If we’re honest Fontaine isn’t much of a comedienne, but her icy, implacable cool serves the film well. It’s left to Grant to do all the heavy lifting laughs-wise and this he achieves with a truly manic unhinged performance. Think of some wild, lost Abbott & Costello movie with Grant in the Costello role; or a Marx Brothers film where Grant has moments of impersonating both Groucho and Harpo – then you have an idea of the joy that lies within ‘Honeymoon of Horrors’.
The dark tone and clearly cynical world view mean it won’t be for everyone’s tastes, but Grant is brilliant and serves yet another reminder why we should never forget what a fantastic, wonderful, always impeccable actor he was.
B&W
‘Honeymoon of Horrors’ is a dark comedy of the type that you just feel Cary Grant wished he did more of. Obviously he knew his image and was fond of his image as it paid for him to be, well, Cary Grant, but there was always something about him that strained to be darker than that image. You can see it in the films he made with Alfred Hitchcock; you see it in the films he made with Howard Hawks. But this is one of those rare movies where he just really goes for it. From talking of the horrendous fate meted out to Archibald Leach in ‘His Girl Friday’, to murderous aunts in ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’, to bloody honeymoons here: this, my friends, is the dark side of Cary Grant.
Upping the tempo of his normal screen persona, this is Grant as full-on frazzled. The most famous example of a frazzled Cary Grant is of course ‘North by Northwest’, but there he’s a proto James Bond, which you have to admit is pretty damn suave. ‘Honeymoon of Horrors’ though is an increasingly macabre comedy, where laughs and deaths are piled on top of each other in frantic and haphazard fashion, and Grant is frazzled to the max. At points he doesn’t even look like Cary Grant: his face is grubby, that normally pristine hair finds itself ruffled and spiked, and his eyes are well and truly bulging. This is a Cary Grant lost in a situation he can’t control, as a newly-wed husband who starts to believe that his wife is a mass murderer.
The fact that the wife is played by Joan Fontaine makes this a delicious spin on Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’. In that film Joan plays a newlywed who starts to be suspicious about the murderous intentions of her husband, Cary Grant, suspicions which build to a disappointing ending. Here it’s Joan Fontaine as the suspected murderess, but it still builds to a disappointing ending. It’s much like Karl Marx said: good Hollywood ideas repeat themselves, first as suspense and then as farce.
Starting out as what looks like a blissful Hollywood romance, the two drive to the beautiful country hotel they’re staying in for their honeymoon, all loved up and with dreams of their future. They check in with the charming receptionist, kiss as they go up to their hotel room and everything looks rosy. But there’s a guest in reception who seems to recognise Fontaine and greets her by another name, before long he’s dead, and not long after all the other guests start dropping like particularly diseased flies. Grant grows suspicious that his lovely bride is responsible, and investigates even when trying to throw the suspicions of others away from her.
If we’re honest Fontaine isn’t much of a comedienne, but her icy, implacable cool serves the film well. It’s left to Grant to do all the heavy lifting laughs-wise and this he achieves with a truly manic unhinged performance. Think of some wild, lost Abbott & Costello movie with Grant in the Costello role; or a Marx Brothers film where Grant has moments of impersonating both Groucho and Harpo – then you have an idea of the joy that lies within ‘Honeymoon of Horrors’.
The dark tone and clearly cynical world view mean it won’t be for everyone’s tastes, but Grant is brilliant and serves yet another reminder why we should never forget what a fantastic, wonderful, always impeccable actor he was.
Sunday, 29 June 2014
The New Cross Eleven (1946)
D. Randall Smyth
Dusty B&W
In British cinema there have always been films which look back at the Second World War with something approaching fondness. Ah, the memories – all those kids playing on the bomb sites, the camaraderie, the sheltering in the tubes, the interminable sing alongs. As long as one ignores the doodlebugs, husbands and fathers fighting overseas, the victims of the blitz, then clearly it was a bloody great time. This is one of those movies with a halcyon glow, made just as the war was ending and so managing to combine a war time story with a pleasure and relief of a job well done.
It’s an optimistic film, a film about promise from the rubble of the past, a film about youth. That’s what I particularly like about it, the fact that the cast is so goddamn young. The principals are all fifteen and younger, and they look it. This is the British youth of 1945: gawky, all elbows and knees and terrible, terrible teeth. If anything is going to reinforce our American cousin’s impression of our dental work, it would be this movie and its pre NHS gnashers. (It’s a shame that barely any of the cast stayed in acting, as Hammer Horror could have used their faces ten years later.) On one hand it’s a sweet film and an innocent film, but it’s also a film about still lingering threats and that adds a jab of cold steel to the centre of it.
‘The New Cross Eleven’ is a boy’s brigade football team, who might look rag-tag but are apparently the best side in their division. The scenes on the football pitch are lovely, even with the bomb sites in the background – they have a charming fluidity that feels fresh and real. It’s as if they’ve just filmed these lads actually playing and captured all the exuberance and fearlessness of youth. It’s particularly stunning – with this soulless, corporate football spectacular going on at the other side of the world – just how divorced what we have today is from this film. The looseness of the football, the length of the shorts, the sense of mischievous community, even the Knobbly knees – all this has gone now. These are not pampered and preening popinjays. They would take one look at Ronaldo and decide he needs to be made less pretty; although spud-faced nipper Wayne Rooney has very much the right appearance. What we have here are good, down to Earth lads. They may be a little scampish at times, but they’re definitely warm and happy presences. Probably I could have just watched them play football in their bombed-out South London suburb for the entire film, but before long the plot kicks in when they start to suspect that the new referee in their league may be a German spy.
Our boys start to investigate.
There’s probably more broad humour in the investigation than I would ideally have liked (certainly most of the toilet jokes fail to flush satisfactorily), but the charm remains and the story takes some fun twists and turns. No doubt the executives behind the much maligned Children’s Film Foundation saw this and thought they saw the future: fun and undemanding films about children solving mysteries and being heroes. However unlike a lot of that body’s output, this film actually works. This isn’t spoon in the mouth drama school kids pretending to be working class, but the real thing; and this isn’t a shaggy dog story where the stakes are only high when looked at from a very middle class nursery in Hampstead, but something that matters. This is a kids’ film but it isn’t a soft film. Indeed anyone who has ever been to New Cross would know that I’d be impossible to make a soft film there. Even at the end of the war, a war that people were already starting to be fond of, there are dangers still apparent and this film isn’t shy of them.
Dusty B&W
In British cinema there have always been films which look back at the Second World War with something approaching fondness. Ah, the memories – all those kids playing on the bomb sites, the camaraderie, the sheltering in the tubes, the interminable sing alongs. As long as one ignores the doodlebugs, husbands and fathers fighting overseas, the victims of the blitz, then clearly it was a bloody great time. This is one of those movies with a halcyon glow, made just as the war was ending and so managing to combine a war time story with a pleasure and relief of a job well done.
It’s an optimistic film, a film about promise from the rubble of the past, a film about youth. That’s what I particularly like about it, the fact that the cast is so goddamn young. The principals are all fifteen and younger, and they look it. This is the British youth of 1945: gawky, all elbows and knees and terrible, terrible teeth. If anything is going to reinforce our American cousin’s impression of our dental work, it would be this movie and its pre NHS gnashers. (It’s a shame that barely any of the cast stayed in acting, as Hammer Horror could have used their faces ten years later.) On one hand it’s a sweet film and an innocent film, but it’s also a film about still lingering threats and that adds a jab of cold steel to the centre of it.
‘The New Cross Eleven’ is a boy’s brigade football team, who might look rag-tag but are apparently the best side in their division. The scenes on the football pitch are lovely, even with the bomb sites in the background – they have a charming fluidity that feels fresh and real. It’s as if they’ve just filmed these lads actually playing and captured all the exuberance and fearlessness of youth. It’s particularly stunning – with this soulless, corporate football spectacular going on at the other side of the world – just how divorced what we have today is from this film. The looseness of the football, the length of the shorts, the sense of mischievous community, even the Knobbly knees – all this has gone now. These are not pampered and preening popinjays. They would take one look at Ronaldo and decide he needs to be made less pretty; although spud-faced nipper Wayne Rooney has very much the right appearance. What we have here are good, down to Earth lads. They may be a little scampish at times, but they’re definitely warm and happy presences. Probably I could have just watched them play football in their bombed-out South London suburb for the entire film, but before long the plot kicks in when they start to suspect that the new referee in their league may be a German spy.
Our boys start to investigate.
There’s probably more broad humour in the investigation than I would ideally have liked (certainly most of the toilet jokes fail to flush satisfactorily), but the charm remains and the story takes some fun twists and turns. No doubt the executives behind the much maligned Children’s Film Foundation saw this and thought they saw the future: fun and undemanding films about children solving mysteries and being heroes. However unlike a lot of that body’s output, this film actually works. This isn’t spoon in the mouth drama school kids pretending to be working class, but the real thing; and this isn’t a shaggy dog story where the stakes are only high when looked at from a very middle class nursery in Hampstead, but something that matters. This is a kids’ film but it isn’t a soft film. Indeed anyone who has ever been to New Cross would know that I’d be impossible to make a soft film there. Even at the end of the war, a war that people were already starting to be fond of, there are dangers still apparent and this film isn’t shy of them.
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
The Man from Budapest (1946)
D. Raoul Walsh
B&W
Ah, it must have been great to have an actor like Peter Lorre hanging around the studio. He could make any bog-standard scene 500% better, while if you gave him something really good he’d turn it into black & white gold. I guess Steve Buscemi would be the modern equivalent. Both are weedy tough guys, both are always better than their material and both occasionally had the chance to be a leading man. In Buscemi’s case television has moved on far enough that he can find himself the star of a lavish drama, while Lorre got ‘The Man from Budapest’. This is a remarkable movie: here’s Peter Lorre in the Bogart role: the ethically dubious detective, with love scenes, smacking down the villains, and being brilliant in the most unsettling way.
Lorre is Lazlo Tec, a famous Hungarian detective (this is a world where policeman in Eastern Europe can build up reputations which stretch across continents – just go with it). On a trip to Manhattan, Lazlo literally has murder drop into his lap in the form of the young Angela Lansbury. Even on holiday Lazlo is too much of a professional to let criminals get away, so he helps nice but dim NY police detective, George Reeves, solve the crime. Along the way he spars with bad girl gone good but maybe going bad again, Lana Turner; roughs up gangster Edward G. Robinson (himself born in Romania, but here playing very American) before revealing the killer at a big fireworks event in a truly bizarre scene where all the dialogue is interspersed by pops and bangs and the other characters look to be peering around Lorre to watch the thrills.
But by that point in the film we’ve got used to the bizarre, as all the way through we’ve had Lorre’s truly shifty and untrustworthy performance. The kind of performance no one usually gives as a hero, but which makes this film truly interesting. No doubt this was written for a Robert Montgomery or a Dana Andrews. That would have been a straightforward film, a run of the mill film, a boring film – this one though is fascinating.
There’s something so wrong about having Lorre as a hero. Every line he utters sounds like a lie, every assertion a misdirection, every accusation a fabrication to hide his own sins. There’s that snivelling voice, that weedy demeanour, those big wet eyes not designed for your straightforward detective. When he smiles at a suspect, one imagines he does so because he knows he’ll be murdering the suspect’s parents later. But what makes it truly great is that the script all the way through treats him as if he is of the highest repute, admired and loved by all, even though that doesn’t really work on the screen. Lana Turner’s character – for instance – falls for him hard, but Lana Turner the actress can’t quite pull off the burning desire for Peter Lorre she needs and so the love scenes feel like he’s paying her to be there.
All of this adds up to a really weird film which almost brings a big old unreliable narrator to the cinema. We’re told Lorre is a hero and he seems to behave decently and to solve the crime at the end. But what if he isn’t and he doesn’t? After all, Lansbury drops into his lap just after he’s been away from his seat to find a waiter. What if, rather than finding the waiter he was killing her for some unknown reason? Then when the police arrive he lays out his credentials (and he may be the real Lazlo Tec, or he might not – who would really know?) and leads the dim NY City police detective on a merry dance. He charges over NY blaming others for his crime, committing more in the cover up (or just for the hell of it), before finally landing on some dumb sap to take the heat for it all. Then at the end he heads back to Hungary with his new paid for floozy escort.
Pick your own version of what the hell is going on, but acknowledge that this is wonderfully subversive film which makes you doff your cap once again to the genius of Peter Lorre.
B&W
Ah, it must have been great to have an actor like Peter Lorre hanging around the studio. He could make any bog-standard scene 500% better, while if you gave him something really good he’d turn it into black & white gold. I guess Steve Buscemi would be the modern equivalent. Both are weedy tough guys, both are always better than their material and both occasionally had the chance to be a leading man. In Buscemi’s case television has moved on far enough that he can find himself the star of a lavish drama, while Lorre got ‘The Man from Budapest’. This is a remarkable movie: here’s Peter Lorre in the Bogart role: the ethically dubious detective, with love scenes, smacking down the villains, and being brilliant in the most unsettling way.
Lorre is Lazlo Tec, a famous Hungarian detective (this is a world where policeman in Eastern Europe can build up reputations which stretch across continents – just go with it). On a trip to Manhattan, Lazlo literally has murder drop into his lap in the form of the young Angela Lansbury. Even on holiday Lazlo is too much of a professional to let criminals get away, so he helps nice but dim NY police detective, George Reeves, solve the crime. Along the way he spars with bad girl gone good but maybe going bad again, Lana Turner; roughs up gangster Edward G. Robinson (himself born in Romania, but here playing very American) before revealing the killer at a big fireworks event in a truly bizarre scene where all the dialogue is interspersed by pops and bangs and the other characters look to be peering around Lorre to watch the thrills.
But by that point in the film we’ve got used to the bizarre, as all the way through we’ve had Lorre’s truly shifty and untrustworthy performance. The kind of performance no one usually gives as a hero, but which makes this film truly interesting. No doubt this was written for a Robert Montgomery or a Dana Andrews. That would have been a straightforward film, a run of the mill film, a boring film – this one though is fascinating.
There’s something so wrong about having Lorre as a hero. Every line he utters sounds like a lie, every assertion a misdirection, every accusation a fabrication to hide his own sins. There’s that snivelling voice, that weedy demeanour, those big wet eyes not designed for your straightforward detective. When he smiles at a suspect, one imagines he does so because he knows he’ll be murdering the suspect’s parents later. But what makes it truly great is that the script all the way through treats him as if he is of the highest repute, admired and loved by all, even though that doesn’t really work on the screen. Lana Turner’s character – for instance – falls for him hard, but Lana Turner the actress can’t quite pull off the burning desire for Peter Lorre she needs and so the love scenes feel like he’s paying her to be there.
All of this adds up to a really weird film which almost brings a big old unreliable narrator to the cinema. We’re told Lorre is a hero and he seems to behave decently and to solve the crime at the end. But what if he isn’t and he doesn’t? After all, Lansbury drops into his lap just after he’s been away from his seat to find a waiter. What if, rather than finding the waiter he was killing her for some unknown reason? Then when the police arrive he lays out his credentials (and he may be the real Lazlo Tec, or he might not – who would really know?) and leads the dim NY City police detective on a merry dance. He charges over NY blaming others for his crime, committing more in the cover up (or just for the hell of it), before finally landing on some dumb sap to take the heat for it all. Then at the end he heads back to Hungary with his new paid for floozy escort.
Pick your own version of what the hell is going on, but acknowledge that this is wonderfully subversive film which makes you doff your cap once again to the genius of Peter Lorre.
Sunday, 11 May 2014
Mrs Davenport (1949)
D. Curtis Bernhardt
B&W
A great big melodramatic musical of the kind nobody makes anymore, or made that often even in the 1940s. A musical which isn’t about dancing in front of exotic sights, or sexy and exciting show folks singing warmly to each other; but instead ordinary people in a big house facing crises in their relationships. Even small stories can be made big if you give them the right attention, and this is a small story made epic and spectacular. It centres on a bored housewife, Olivia De Havilland, who is fed up of her travelling businessman husband, George Sanders, and so flirting with waif-like hunk up the street, Farley Granger. When Granger breaks his leg she seizes her chance for perhaps something more and moves him in with her to recuperate. But, maybe sensing something wrong, Sanders decides to take a sabbatical from work to return to the house full time and become a doting husband. The scene is set for high passion, jealousy, arguments, tears, swoons and finally revelation after revelation of crippling childhood secrets. It’s the stuff of high musical drama, of emotive songs in an over-wrought style. Except if you put ‘Mrs Davenport’ on with a view to tapping your feet along to some soaring tunes, then I should apologise now, as this isn’t actually a musical at all.
Why am I being mischievous? Why am I lying? Well, because if ever a film looks like it’s crying out to be a musical it’s ‘Mrs Davenport’. So many times throughout the film an emotional crescendo is reached, the score starts to swell, and one thinks this is it: we’re going to have a big heartfelt number. But frustratingly it never actually happens. Yet still the film, in its ever so earnest melodramatic pomp, keeps leading us to believe that a musical is going to break out. The last time I watched this movie, a friend of mine and I played a drinking game wherein you had to swig at every point you thought a song was going to happen. We both ended up so, so pissed. At first I thought it was the self-serious score leading the audience to feel like this, but actually the whole thing is staged as if it really is a musical. At the end of every argument, revelation, tearful reconciliation, the camera lingers that little bit too long on our leads’ faces with the result that you expect something else to happen. When it then cuts away to the next talky scene, it’s like something has been chopped out. As if some bitter projectionist who can’t hold a tune has made this film his own personal plaything.
De Havilland, as always, is lovely and radiant and wonderful (I will never hear a word said against Olivia De Havilland); Sanders knows how to deliver snide remarks and present a wounded yet carefree façade like no other actor; while Granger looks the part of sensitive young soul, even if – as always – he looks ridiculously gauche on camera. But for a simple human drama, set in a ramshackle old house, it’s incredibly bombastic and in love with its own seriousness and importance in a way it doesn’t need to be. I don’t know if Tennessee Williams ever saw ‘Mrs Davenport’, but even he’d have thought that the characters just need to shut the fuck up and get over themselves. However if Warner Bros had taken the time to throw in something an audience could sing, well perhaps Mrs Davenport would have lived longer in the cultural memory as the great, spectacular, camp classic it is crying out to be.
B&W
A great big melodramatic musical of the kind nobody makes anymore, or made that often even in the 1940s. A musical which isn’t about dancing in front of exotic sights, or sexy and exciting show folks singing warmly to each other; but instead ordinary people in a big house facing crises in their relationships. Even small stories can be made big if you give them the right attention, and this is a small story made epic and spectacular. It centres on a bored housewife, Olivia De Havilland, who is fed up of her travelling businessman husband, George Sanders, and so flirting with waif-like hunk up the street, Farley Granger. When Granger breaks his leg she seizes her chance for perhaps something more and moves him in with her to recuperate. But, maybe sensing something wrong, Sanders decides to take a sabbatical from work to return to the house full time and become a doting husband. The scene is set for high passion, jealousy, arguments, tears, swoons and finally revelation after revelation of crippling childhood secrets. It’s the stuff of high musical drama, of emotive songs in an over-wrought style. Except if you put ‘Mrs Davenport’ on with a view to tapping your feet along to some soaring tunes, then I should apologise now, as this isn’t actually a musical at all.
Why am I being mischievous? Why am I lying? Well, because if ever a film looks like it’s crying out to be a musical it’s ‘Mrs Davenport’. So many times throughout the film an emotional crescendo is reached, the score starts to swell, and one thinks this is it: we’re going to have a big heartfelt number. But frustratingly it never actually happens. Yet still the film, in its ever so earnest melodramatic pomp, keeps leading us to believe that a musical is going to break out. The last time I watched this movie, a friend of mine and I played a drinking game wherein you had to swig at every point you thought a song was going to happen. We both ended up so, so pissed. At first I thought it was the self-serious score leading the audience to feel like this, but actually the whole thing is staged as if it really is a musical. At the end of every argument, revelation, tearful reconciliation, the camera lingers that little bit too long on our leads’ faces with the result that you expect something else to happen. When it then cuts away to the next talky scene, it’s like something has been chopped out. As if some bitter projectionist who can’t hold a tune has made this film his own personal plaything.
De Havilland, as always, is lovely and radiant and wonderful (I will never hear a word said against Olivia De Havilland); Sanders knows how to deliver snide remarks and present a wounded yet carefree façade like no other actor; while Granger looks the part of sensitive young soul, even if – as always – he looks ridiculously gauche on camera. But for a simple human drama, set in a ramshackle old house, it’s incredibly bombastic and in love with its own seriousness and importance in a way it doesn’t need to be. I don’t know if Tennessee Williams ever saw ‘Mrs Davenport’, but even he’d have thought that the characters just need to shut the fuck up and get over themselves. However if Warner Bros had taken the time to throw in something an audience could sing, well perhaps Mrs Davenport would have lived longer in the cultural memory as the great, spectacular, camp classic it is crying out to be.
Sunday, 2 February 2014
The Scandalous Mrs Brooks (1947)
D. Robert Wise
Black & White
One of the joys of having studied English literature is that it gives you the skills to do perverse readings of texts. I remember in my student library there was a book which proved that ‘Alice In Wonderland’ was a rewriting of The Koran. The author had gone through Lewis Carroll’s classic line by line to prove categorically – and beyond doubt - that Alice’s adventures were a rewriting of that sacred text. Now obviously ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is not a reworking of ‘The Koran’, but you have to admire the gumption of the author for attempting it. Textually he had managed to make a convincing case, even though that case was palpable nonsense. It’s a great example of what mischievous things English students can pull off if they set their minds to it.
So what can I do with 1940s noir melodrama ‘The Scandalous Mrs Brooks’? A tale of the conniving and wily Rebecca Brooks and the trouble she gets herself into. Obviously this film is nothing to do with Rebekah Brooks – currently facing trial at the Old Bailey for what went on in Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper empire – but let’s just say, for fun and larks, that buried away there may be hints in this film as to her case.
For starters, the central character is played by Rita Hayworth, so even though we’re looking at black and white, we know that there’s a flame haired lioness at the centre. There’s the fact that a key part of the plot is driven by a conversation that Rebecca eavesdrops over an open telephone line. At her side is an ever supporting second husband (Paul Henreid, playing the role with his normal phenomenal lack of charisma) who when he realises the perfidy of his wife, does all he can to alter the evidence. And then there’s the ruthless investigator, Claude Rains, who Rebecca first tries to charm and then to bully and then stonewall completely. Okay, its set in the 1940s, in a large mansion and the main push factor is the inheritance of your actual gold mine, but there are good reasons why no UK TV channel has shown this in the last few months. Seeing a Rebecca Brooks wriggle and connive and scheme to get herself out of serious trouble, may make jurors stare a little more anxiously at the Rebekah Brooks they have in the dock.
But what could probably be the most damning moment (certainly for any cinephiles in the jury) is when the camera pans onto a photo of Rebecca’s late husband,, Mr Brooks. There he is, played in still image by Orson Welles. That’s right, she finds herself in this movie closely associated with the most famous/notorious media mogul in cinema – Charles Foster Kane himself. Okay, Orson Welles never spoke with an Australian accent, but it isn't too much of a mental leap from bullying and untouchable Kane to bullying and untouchable Murdoch. The way Orson is wrinkling his forehead even makes him look a little like Rupert (although a vastly more handsome version). So there you have it, lies and deception, eavesdropping and obfuscation, and – to top it all - close connections with legendary media moguls. There really are very good reasons why no TV channel has shown this film in the last few months.
Of course any woman would find herself flattered by a comparison to Rita Hayworth, but Rebekah should probably do her best to avoid this film for now. The ending ain’t pretty!
Black & White
One of the joys of having studied English literature is that it gives you the skills to do perverse readings of texts. I remember in my student library there was a book which proved that ‘Alice In Wonderland’ was a rewriting of The Koran. The author had gone through Lewis Carroll’s classic line by line to prove categorically – and beyond doubt - that Alice’s adventures were a rewriting of that sacred text. Now obviously ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is not a reworking of ‘The Koran’, but you have to admire the gumption of the author for attempting it. Textually he had managed to make a convincing case, even though that case was palpable nonsense. It’s a great example of what mischievous things English students can pull off if they set their minds to it.
So what can I do with 1940s noir melodrama ‘The Scandalous Mrs Brooks’? A tale of the conniving and wily Rebecca Brooks and the trouble she gets herself into. Obviously this film is nothing to do with Rebekah Brooks – currently facing trial at the Old Bailey for what went on in Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper empire – but let’s just say, for fun and larks, that buried away there may be hints in this film as to her case.
For starters, the central character is played by Rita Hayworth, so even though we’re looking at black and white, we know that there’s a flame haired lioness at the centre. There’s the fact that a key part of the plot is driven by a conversation that Rebecca eavesdrops over an open telephone line. At her side is an ever supporting second husband (Paul Henreid, playing the role with his normal phenomenal lack of charisma) who when he realises the perfidy of his wife, does all he can to alter the evidence. And then there’s the ruthless investigator, Claude Rains, who Rebecca first tries to charm and then to bully and then stonewall completely. Okay, its set in the 1940s, in a large mansion and the main push factor is the inheritance of your actual gold mine, but there are good reasons why no UK TV channel has shown this in the last few months. Seeing a Rebecca Brooks wriggle and connive and scheme to get herself out of serious trouble, may make jurors stare a little more anxiously at the Rebekah Brooks they have in the dock.
But what could probably be the most damning moment (certainly for any cinephiles in the jury) is when the camera pans onto a photo of Rebecca’s late husband,, Mr Brooks. There he is, played in still image by Orson Welles. That’s right, she finds herself in this movie closely associated with the most famous/notorious media mogul in cinema – Charles Foster Kane himself. Okay, Orson Welles never spoke with an Australian accent, but it isn't too much of a mental leap from bullying and untouchable Kane to bullying and untouchable Murdoch. The way Orson is wrinkling his forehead even makes him look a little like Rupert (although a vastly more handsome version). So there you have it, lies and deception, eavesdropping and obfuscation, and – to top it all - close connections with legendary media moguls. There really are very good reasons why no TV channel has shown this film in the last few months.
Of course any woman would find herself flattered by a comparison to Rita Hayworth, but Rebekah should probably do her best to avoid this film for now. The ending ain’t pretty!
Sunday, 26 January 2014
The Black Flamingo (1948)
D. Raoul Walsh
Glorious Technicolor
It’s been a long time since we had a proper pirate film. These days the closest we get is ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’, which is much more post-modern and ironic (as well as being happy to arse about and throw goggle-eyes at the supernatural). But those films don’t feel like proper pirate films to me, they’re almost spoofs of a pirate films which just coast along on the affection we apparently all feel for Johnny Depp’s performance. (And seriously, if we don’t love it and think it’s merely okay – and if we’re honest increasingly served with lashings of self-indulgence which makes it go WAY over the top - then those films can be more than somewhat tedious). Before that we had ‘Cutthroat Island’, which I saw in the cinema and greatly enjoyed, and am always a little baffled that it was such a flop and has so much bad press. But really if we want a proper pirate film – one with ruffled shirts and cutlasses and impossibly handsome leading men with earrings pretending to sail the seven seas in a large tank in the studio – we have to go back even further to the 1940s/1950s and the true age of the pirate film.
This is one of my favourites. Here we have Clark Gable roaring it up as the titular Black Flamingo – who according to his star-struck first mate is “a rogue, a fighter, a lover.” (It goes without saying that the first mate has a bit of a crush on Clark, indeed the moony way he utters the word “lover” suggests this affection may have been reciprocated.) Out at sea one day (or in a tank in the studio) Clark and his crew catch sight of a listing frigate. They’re pirates of the old school so of course they raid, and on board they find nobody but wealthy London trader Sidney Greenstreet and his delectable daughter, Virginia Mayo. Obviously there’s a mystery as to why the ship is otherwise empty, but first – and to save his own life – Greenstreet tells them of some treasure he has stowed away. Filled with greed, the pirates sail out to find it, taking Greenstreet and Mayo with them as hostages. And that’s the film. It’s a breezy and exciting adventure yarn which is filled with the thrill of sailing the mighty oceans, wielding cutlasses, and wearing big frilly shirts (in particular Clark’s luridly red frilly shirt). It’s about Clark Gable’s dashing moustache, it’s about his romancing the absolute peach of a beauty that is Virginia Mayo and it’s about Clark’s less than trustworthy relationship with Sidney Greenstreet. The two of them facing off in a battle of wills, a battle of styles, a battle of rogues who look so distinctive in profile.
And that’s what makes this film so brilliant, it keeps everything simple. Rather than lots of complex plot points and supernatural nonsense, ‘The Black Flamingo’ presents its strengths and proceeds to expertly play to them. Raoul Walsh clearly believes that the dashing enthusiasm of Clark Gable will contrast fantastically with the conniving stillness of Greenstreet, and so it’s worthwhile giving them lots of scenes together. Similarly he thinks that Virginia Mayo looks absolutely ravishing in Technicolor (seriously Virginia Mayo does look absolutely, jaw droppingly, sex on legs, magnificent in Technicolor; her peaches and cream complexion is absolutely delicious – seriously it’s possible that no woman was ever photographed as well in Technicolor as Virginia Mayo) and it will be a male audience fantasy to see her seduced by Clark Gable. (And women, let’s be honest, the sight of an expert seduction by Clark Gable must offer a vicarious thrill). Okay the mystery of the empty ship isn’t as resolved as well as it should be, but everyone has had so much fun on the way that only the most finicky will really care. As what this film is trying to be is The Perfect Pirate Movie, with catchy sea-shanties, a cheerfully roguish crew, betrayal and distrust, romance and adventure laced through every frame. All of that is true and Walsh magnificently steers this mighty ship to give us a truly wonderful hour and a half.
Glorious Technicolor
It’s been a long time since we had a proper pirate film. These days the closest we get is ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’, which is much more post-modern and ironic (as well as being happy to arse about and throw goggle-eyes at the supernatural). But those films don’t feel like proper pirate films to me, they’re almost spoofs of a pirate films which just coast along on the affection we apparently all feel for Johnny Depp’s performance. (And seriously, if we don’t love it and think it’s merely okay – and if we’re honest increasingly served with lashings of self-indulgence which makes it go WAY over the top - then those films can be more than somewhat tedious). Before that we had ‘Cutthroat Island’, which I saw in the cinema and greatly enjoyed, and am always a little baffled that it was such a flop and has so much bad press. But really if we want a proper pirate film – one with ruffled shirts and cutlasses and impossibly handsome leading men with earrings pretending to sail the seven seas in a large tank in the studio – we have to go back even further to the 1940s/1950s and the true age of the pirate film.
This is one of my favourites. Here we have Clark Gable roaring it up as the titular Black Flamingo – who according to his star-struck first mate is “a rogue, a fighter, a lover.” (It goes without saying that the first mate has a bit of a crush on Clark, indeed the moony way he utters the word “lover” suggests this affection may have been reciprocated.) Out at sea one day (or in a tank in the studio) Clark and his crew catch sight of a listing frigate. They’re pirates of the old school so of course they raid, and on board they find nobody but wealthy London trader Sidney Greenstreet and his delectable daughter, Virginia Mayo. Obviously there’s a mystery as to why the ship is otherwise empty, but first – and to save his own life – Greenstreet tells them of some treasure he has stowed away. Filled with greed, the pirates sail out to find it, taking Greenstreet and Mayo with them as hostages. And that’s the film. It’s a breezy and exciting adventure yarn which is filled with the thrill of sailing the mighty oceans, wielding cutlasses, and wearing big frilly shirts (in particular Clark’s luridly red frilly shirt). It’s about Clark Gable’s dashing moustache, it’s about his romancing the absolute peach of a beauty that is Virginia Mayo and it’s about Clark’s less than trustworthy relationship with Sidney Greenstreet. The two of them facing off in a battle of wills, a battle of styles, a battle of rogues who look so distinctive in profile.
And that’s what makes this film so brilliant, it keeps everything simple. Rather than lots of complex plot points and supernatural nonsense, ‘The Black Flamingo’ presents its strengths and proceeds to expertly play to them. Raoul Walsh clearly believes that the dashing enthusiasm of Clark Gable will contrast fantastically with the conniving stillness of Greenstreet, and so it’s worthwhile giving them lots of scenes together. Similarly he thinks that Virginia Mayo looks absolutely ravishing in Technicolor (seriously Virginia Mayo does look absolutely, jaw droppingly, sex on legs, magnificent in Technicolor; her peaches and cream complexion is absolutely delicious – seriously it’s possible that no woman was ever photographed as well in Technicolor as Virginia Mayo) and it will be a male audience fantasy to see her seduced by Clark Gable. (And women, let’s be honest, the sight of an expert seduction by Clark Gable must offer a vicarious thrill). Okay the mystery of the empty ship isn’t as resolved as well as it should be, but everyone has had so much fun on the way that only the most finicky will really care. As what this film is trying to be is The Perfect Pirate Movie, with catchy sea-shanties, a cheerfully roguish crew, betrayal and distrust, romance and adventure laced through every frame. All of that is true and Walsh magnificently steers this mighty ship to give us a truly wonderful hour and a half.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
The Voodoo Lady of Texas (1945)
D. Otto Preminger
B&W
The moon is high and yet it’s still an eerily dark night. The prairie plain seems desolate, what we would now liken to a moonscape. Only the odd cactus leads you to acknowledge there is any life whatsoever, and even then it doesn’t look comforting. There’s no sound (apart from the distant whirr of the projector) and that’s incredibly spooky as well; so much so that you’d welcome even the howl of a distant jackal, but none comes. Even though it’s just an image projected on a screen you can see that it’s a cold place, so freezing and airless in the darkness that even your bones start to shiver. This is a place of death, a vision of what hell must look like, and you are all alone within it – no comfort in sight. But wait, there’s movement. From somewhere deep in the prairie plain a figure is appearing, shambling and stumbling forward as if not fully in control of its limbs. You look closer and see that it’s a man, a cowboy dressed in full garb, but looking so bruised and beaten. He almost seems like a dead cowboy. He stumbles towards the camera, his head down, as if weeping or needing every ounce of strength to make one foot move in front of the other. His arm is wounded and there is blood on his shirt, but still he keeps coming – staggering his way towards you. And then as he is almost upon the camera he finally raises his head to let you see his dazed eyes, and – oh my god! – is that John Wayne?
And so begins one of the strangest movies The Duke ever participated in. His only horror and one of the few horror westerns I’ve found. Clearly influenced by the likes of Jacques Tournier’s ‘The Cat People’, this is a master class of dark shadows, suspense and things not being quite what they should be. Wayne plays Ellis Bob, a widower with a sick child. We join him out in the desert, mid-way through his quest to find the strange voodoo princess who lives just beyond the mountains. This voodoo lady, when he finds her, sets him several quests. She is arch, she seems foreign; she is the unmistakably exotic and dazzling form of Marlene Dietrich.
A virtual two hander, Dietrich purrs her lines and sets Wayne his challenge of fire, ice, air and earth and when he succeeds in each task gives him a bit more of the information he’ll need to save his son’s life. It is spooky, it is atmospheric. It’s dark and claustrophobic and also terrifying. Okay, with her accent it’s difficult to really believe that Dietrich grew up from a small child practicing New Orleans voodoo (although to be fair, she doesn’t even try to make a haphazard stab at the Louisiana accent), but her presence is so alien and exotic that you end up believing virtually everything of her. While Wayne is great at playing not too intelligent, superb as a slow and dutiful father who can only believe the evidence of his own eyes. It’s a great pairing, and the scenes between them are a hungry and smiling cat playing with a dim-witted toy mouse. This is a taut and claustrophobic western horror, which is definitely worth traipsing across a bleak landscape for.
B&W
The moon is high and yet it’s still an eerily dark night. The prairie plain seems desolate, what we would now liken to a moonscape. Only the odd cactus leads you to acknowledge there is any life whatsoever, and even then it doesn’t look comforting. There’s no sound (apart from the distant whirr of the projector) and that’s incredibly spooky as well; so much so that you’d welcome even the howl of a distant jackal, but none comes. Even though it’s just an image projected on a screen you can see that it’s a cold place, so freezing and airless in the darkness that even your bones start to shiver. This is a place of death, a vision of what hell must look like, and you are all alone within it – no comfort in sight. But wait, there’s movement. From somewhere deep in the prairie plain a figure is appearing, shambling and stumbling forward as if not fully in control of its limbs. You look closer and see that it’s a man, a cowboy dressed in full garb, but looking so bruised and beaten. He almost seems like a dead cowboy. He stumbles towards the camera, his head down, as if weeping or needing every ounce of strength to make one foot move in front of the other. His arm is wounded and there is blood on his shirt, but still he keeps coming – staggering his way towards you. And then as he is almost upon the camera he finally raises his head to let you see his dazed eyes, and – oh my god! – is that John Wayne?
And so begins one of the strangest movies The Duke ever participated in. His only horror and one of the few horror westerns I’ve found. Clearly influenced by the likes of Jacques Tournier’s ‘The Cat People’, this is a master class of dark shadows, suspense and things not being quite what they should be. Wayne plays Ellis Bob, a widower with a sick child. We join him out in the desert, mid-way through his quest to find the strange voodoo princess who lives just beyond the mountains. This voodoo lady, when he finds her, sets him several quests. She is arch, she seems foreign; she is the unmistakably exotic and dazzling form of Marlene Dietrich.
A virtual two hander, Dietrich purrs her lines and sets Wayne his challenge of fire, ice, air and earth and when he succeeds in each task gives him a bit more of the information he’ll need to save his son’s life. It is spooky, it is atmospheric. It’s dark and claustrophobic and also terrifying. Okay, with her accent it’s difficult to really believe that Dietrich grew up from a small child practicing New Orleans voodoo (although to be fair, she doesn’t even try to make a haphazard stab at the Louisiana accent), but her presence is so alien and exotic that you end up believing virtually everything of her. While Wayne is great at playing not too intelligent, superb as a slow and dutiful father who can only believe the evidence of his own eyes. It’s a great pairing, and the scenes between them are a hungry and smiling cat playing with a dim-witted toy mouse. This is a taut and claustrophobic western horror, which is definitely worth traipsing across a bleak landscape for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)