1930s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[matrixschmatrix]

So, the leads in Lady X are fun (though it took me forever to recognize Ralph Richardson, whom I've never seen playing an idiot before), but overall it's sort of too creepy to be especially enjoyable for me- the idea that Olivier's all uncomfortable because he thinks the woman he's with is sexually compromised (shock! horror!) but really it's ok because she's actually a child isn't as delightful to me as the movie seems to think it will be. Oberon playing along with his misconception only escapes being sheer cruelty due to the impish sense of fun that plays around her face, but it mostly meant that the main problem of the movie was an idiot plot. Also, it's kind of hard just to glide past Olivier's big misogynist speech in the courtroom- whoever that poor woman on the stand was, she got a pretty damn raw deal.

I'm not sure of why I find the spectacle of Marlene Dietrich dominating men through manipulation so fun, and found it sort of unpleasant here- I think it's because the movie seems unwilling to commit to the idea that the kind of woman Oberon is accused of being is not only acceptable, but pretty much the best kind of woman. By having her really be an innocent child (and such a 'good girl' that she can outright say what Olivier is terrified to have come out), it hedges its bets, which ruins the beauty of forcing the viewer to confront their prejudices. Moreover, Dietrich's manipulation was always to some meaningful end- Oberon's just jerking Olivier around.

That last parts provide some redemption for the overall gender politics, though- however he termed it, I kind of liked the grandfather's speech about how just about anyone could prefer a 'wicked' woman to a damn child, and I enjoyed that we get a generally positive impression of Lady Mere (who is justly infuriated at her husband and his nattering.) I still get a general impression basically buys into all the dumb shit that Olivier says in his speech, but it's view is more or less "well that's women for you!"- his speech at the end isn't really all that much better than his earlier one.

It's funny to watch a movie that takes things like 'correspondents' and flagrante delicto seriously immediately after watching The Gay Divorcee, though.

[knives]

See here I enjoyed the movie because it's two leads are so horrible and the film highlights it at every moment. At the very center is a deconstruction of the lies that go into making a screwball and how absolutely cruel those things are. She ruins his life through deceit.

That said I didn't really pick up the misogyny you speak of since Olivier is presented as a dolt through and through. The closest I can think of is that courtroom scene you mention, but it's used to further prove he's a dolt so while it may go too far to prove it's point I don't see misogyny coming from the film.

[matrixschmatrix]

Olivier seems less like a dolt- I don't know that he's actually stupid- and more like someone who's weak because he's willing to stay on with a woman with a past, the same way Richardson is presented. Olivier really is marvelous at playing that kind of character- his character in Rebecca isn't much different- but there's an implication that pointless manipulation, deceit, bullying, etc. are more or less reasonable behavior from women, whom we can't really expect to behave like real people.

It's softened because the men are also idiots, but I still found it kind of unpleasant.

[knives]

I don't think Richardson is an idiot so much some one prone to overreact and if anything Olivier is shown to be outdated by having Richardson become implicit in the games against Olivier. Not to mention Olivier is more worried not because she has a past, but that she has a present. While I'm sure his old timey morals would present that problem in an other story in this one the problem is that she's married now. That's a situation he simply never knew he would have to confront and is ill equipped to handle it coming off as a dolt as a result.

[matrixschmatrix]

At any rate, I'm starting to think my choice to try and cleanse my palate with The Scarlet Pimpernel may not have been the best one, the politics here are going to make me break out in hives.

It's making me like La Marseillaise a lot more, though.

[knives]

I love the banter between Howard and Massey, but you had to expect horrifying politics from that.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm actually kind of enjoying it, particularly the parts where Howard plays a foppish dandy. I could watch foppish dandies trade bons mots for hours on end. I wish all the political intrigue and action scenes would stop getting in the way, though.

(I'm sorry if I've been drowning the thread with idle chatter, I'm never sure where the line between legit contributions and just clogging things up lies.)

[knives]

It's all idle chatter in the end anyways. I think I agree with where you're going on this.The Howard making fun of the aristocracy stuff is great (I especially love the scene where he falls asleep in the library). It's just that the politics from the novel are so disgusting and so well kept for the movie it ruins those fun parts for me. I don't know if you've got there yet, but Massey really is the best villain in all of England for the decade at least. He reminds me a great deal of Vincent Price.

[knives]

Naruse really loves shots of cars coming into the camera and than leaving on the other side, huh? with this comment I have finally seen Morning's Tree-Lined Streets and it's just as great as anything else he has made. The movie gets off to the right foot immediately as a folksy tune plays over the introduction to our stars.

The whole film plays with the nature of score wonderfully and while it's sound design isn't as radical as Wife! Be Like a Rose!'s it still manages to be unique and decades ahead of itself. The whole construction is as smooth as is to be expected so I won't get too into that and instead focus on some amazing characters with full characterizations.

That's not say this film is entirely unique in that way either. This is like the fourth time I've met with these characters (second chronologically) who with each encounter become more important to me. Especially with it's fish out of water qualities I am constantly reminded of my favorite Naruse, Flowing. The lead here is very different though bringing not only country mouse qualities, but a hurtful kind of ignorance. At first she seemed cruel such as with a scene where she runs away clutching all of her possessions because she sees a random homeless man.

Naruse does an amazing job at switching this around though showing quietly her prejudices to be from ignorance rather than any truly negative attribute. As a result the film becomes about her learning experience as she cares for her lost childhood friend. Lost might not be the right word though because in typical Naruse fashion in spite of the world beating down upon her and the effects of such a life becoming obvious she stays resilient and even from the start is rather secretly the more powerful character.

Overall I'm not sure if I should take away this movie's sadness or happiness. The downward spiral of the friend is one of the darkest series of moments I've seen and it taints even her happier moments later on, but the fight upward by the other women and especially the way that they try to protect her is extraordinarily stirring. The film in it's short hour manages to do everything a movie can.

[myrnaloyisdope]

I haven't heard any mention of one of the finer documentaries of the decade, Master Hands, available at archive.org.

A 30 minute mostly wordless tribute to the 1936 Chevrolet, it has some pretty marvellous factory footage, filming all aspects of automobile production right up until the car rolls out of the factory. Some of the sequences are reminiscent of 1904's Westinghouse Works, and it is hard not to be in awe of the enormity of it all, as one really gets a sense of the marvel of mass production. The score is what really makes it all come together and keeps one engaged even as the film runs perhaps a little long. Scored by the unknown Samuel Benavie, the music alternately drives and soars and is perfectly suited for the footage.

[Gregory]

It's also on the Flicker Alley set Saved From the Flames, for those who may have that set, or were planning to pick it up, and prefer that quality to streaming.

[matrixschmatrix]

I just realized I didn't properly write up The Scarlet Pimpernel, just alluded to it.

I wound up liking it a lot, enough that it will make the lower reaches of my list, abhorrent politics and all. I think one of the reasons that I could get past the politics here, yet was bogged down by them in Pygmalion (which doesn't actually have a bad viewpoint, but certainly depicts some disgusting views) is that the movie is so cheerfully removed from anything resembling reality.

It's royalist, it depicts the French peasantry as a mob of bloodthirsy subhumans, it reduces the entire revolutionary government to Robespierre, and it pretends that the aristocrats were at worst a little negligent- but who could possibly be seduced by it? The class views being displayed feels more like something out of a fairy tale than anything one could mistake for real, and that sense is heightened by the Pimpernel's superhuman cunning and Fantomas-like disguise skills. It's cheating, certainly, but it cheats so blatantly that it becomes harmless.

It was also interesting how willingly it tweaked the aristos- I'd be fascinated to read the source and see how close the movie was to it, because the feeling I get is that the author (herself an aristocrat) was fully capable of lambasting her fellows, but could speak of France and the French peasantry only in the absurd terms the aristocracy would spread amongst themselves. The satire on them feels sharply funny, because they feel like real people, or at least caricatures of real people, whereas the peasants seem like Chaucer's depictions of Jews: sure, it's awful, but how could anyone who'd ever encountered them in real life think anything of the kind?

As for the action of the movie itself- the mental duel between Howard and Massey was fun, and that sort of Batman/Zorro-esque dual identity play always sets up some implied winks at the audience. The love story aspects drag a little, since I really couldn't care less about the details of the honor system for these ridiculous people (though it's funny to see a 'wicked baron' thing out of a melodrama applied in that context), but Merle Oberon acquitted herself well enough.

Overall, it felt like The Prisoner of Zenda, only the royalist nonsense aspect was more front and center. It's a movie I'd be terrified to see in a history class, but a lot of fun in any other context.

(Has anyone seen 'Pimpernel' Smith? It's not within the scope of the project, but it sounds kind of awesome.)

[matrixschmatrix]

Things To Come is a strange watch- it's hard to imagine a time before the Manhattan Project and Operation Paperclip, when one could still think scientists and engineers in charge would make for a Utopia (and even on its own terms the Mighty Scientists' government reminds has all the self-righteous imperialism of the US at is worst, and that's before it turns into Zamyatin's We.) The movie plays a bit like A Canticle for Leibowitz in its long-term view about the cycles of technology, and in the portrayal of a Dark Age where knowledge has gone underground, but Canticle was smart enough to keep its scope limited- and generally had a much better grasp of characterization.

The Utopia we get to at the end of the movie seems so unpleasant that I wonder if Welles was autistic or something- particularly the exchange that implies that they've gotten rid of art, sunshine, and humor, as they don't really need them anymore. It's funny that Welles hated Metropolis, because the conflicts play out a lot the same- the masses against the machines- and while Von Harbou's head/heart/hands thing got pretty silly, at least it acknowledged the legitimacy of the masses' fury. The triumphalism at the end is really unpleasant, too- it seems to claim the only real reason the masses are so angry is pure spite that science is so much better and smarter than they are.

The movie does have some really strong points. The opening sequence is absolutely killer- the eerie juxtaposition of Christmas hope and all the signs of war, built up almost entirely through montage, and the contrasting scenes of devastation, are about the only really prescient aspect of the movie, and the one montage sequence in it that doesn't drag. Beyond that, I like Richardson, and it's interesting to see Raymond Massey playing someone who's a hero (I guess?), and the visual design is neat (though goofy) and seems like the inspiration for the look of pretty well every sci-fi movie to come (particularly in the monumentalism). It's never going to be a favorite movie, it's a movie that's more interesting than good, but I' m glad to have seen it. I'd also be really interested to read Frayling's BFI book about it now.

(On a semi-relevant note, the guy who got human cannonballed into space (Edward Chapman) kept sounding exactly like Michael Palin doing his toff voice)

[knives]

Glad you're a better man than me and could get past the politics. It's almost worth staying with the film (which while shortened and changed from the source novel creates similar characterization and identical politics) just to see the three leads bounce off each other. The entire climax between Howard and Massey is too much fun and it's unfortunate they both weren't able to get more work for various reasons (damn you WWII). Just to fill out your Howard appetite a bit you have to see It's Love I'm After.

The real reason I'm posting though is that miracle of miracles, wonder of wonders I actually not only enjoyed, but slightly loved a Mizoguchi movie today. While I wouldn't label Osaka Elegy a great film it comes mighty close with uniformly great performances and a central story that doesn't martyr it's lead rather allowing her respect. The final moment with the doctor as she excepts her fate is the single greatest thing I've seen by Mizoguchi and nearly makes me regret every bad thing I've ever said about him. I can't comprehend the man who gives such an honest and frank portrayal of womanhood could be the same one who gave us the horrible misogyny of The Sisters of Gion.

[matrixschmatrix]

Just watched Port of Shadows

I've heard a criticism of the poetic realism movement that it could descend into schematicism, that all the fluid, interlocking pieces and reversals and ironies could turn into something that felt like those were the point, rather than an illumination. I think this is the first movie I've seen for which that critique makes sense.

The good parts are obvious- it's beautifully shot, Gabin is great as always as a fundamentally decent man with rage and violence near the surface, and there are some standout scenes (particularly the part at the beginning with the trucker), and I feel as though if I had come to this before Pépé le Moko, The Rules of the Game, and even La Bête Humaine (which I was not entirely sold on) I would have admired it more, but as it is, it felt like the form of those movies with less nuance and meaning. The plot is all rhymed, where anything anyone predicts eventually comes true- such rhyming felt masterful in The Rules of the Game, but here it felt a bit forced, as though the rhymes came first and the reasons later.

I suppose my objection is that it wasn't genius enough, which seems like praise with faint damnation, but there it is. There wasn't a feeling of profundity, of a movie that will live in my head, and I've been so impressed with the other classics of the movement that I've seen that such a failing seems like a grievous one to me. Even the messy La Marseillaise has parts that I doubt I will ever forget- while Port of Shadows has some good scenes, and no bad ones, I don't think I can say that of it.

(I'd forgotten that Children of Paradise, which I liked much better, was also Carné- it's similarly schematic, but it has a grandeur and a personality that's lacking here, a sense that the characters are capable of choosing whether or not to go along with the fates pre-ordained them by the fatalism of poetic justice.)

[PillowRock]

Oh man are all the Astaire and Rogers movies smart enough to let you see their goddamn feet when they are dancing, or is it just The Gay Divorcee? Because that is like the #1 most infuriating thing to me in this kind of movie, when they cut the poor dancers off at the knees.

I've seen Astaire quoted as saying something like: "Either I'm going to dance or the camera is going to dance ..... And I'm going to dance."

As long as Astaire had enough clout to influence such things, in his movies (whether with Rogers or without) that attitude generally manifests itself in that the camera work tends to back off during the dancing and allows the audience to watch the dancers. (However, sometimes floor length dresses obscure Rogers' feet. The trade off being that they / she could be pretty good at using long flowing skirts as a prop in the dancing, creating a different visual line all its own.)

[Matt]

Astaire's demands on the way his dancing scenes were filmed were in his contract from Flying Down to Rio onwards and his estate still owns the rights to all of his dancing scenes, no matter how many other people are in the frame with him.

[matrixschmatrix]

Holy shit, La Signora di Tutti is fucking sadistic. It's like watching an even more heightened version of Blonde Venus, only the protagonist is almost totally passive and incapable of defending herself. Even when she's successful, we see her totally lacking control over her own image and story- within the movie, she doesn't even have the right to define her own past nor her own career- and over and over, she is blamed for other people's actions toward her, without even any question of being able to defend herself. She's stronger by the end, an adult who is capable of speaking for herself, but in the end, the only form of expression she can find is in self-destruction.

I mean, it's a gorgeous movie, and the camerawork is astonishing (I'm assuming it's post-synced? That would explain the freedom from early-sound loginess)- and I have no complaints about it politically, as it's clearly intending for the cruelty to Gaby and the way she's stage-managed and pushed into everything to be nigh-unbearable, but it's just too much for me. I'm kind of worried, because I've got The Earrings of Madame de... and Lola Montes, too.

edit: Gallagher says it was direct sound, which makes the camerawork that much more remarkable. This might be a movie that I come around on after I get beyond the initial pain of actually watching it- it's certainly a powerful movie, just one that seemed so cruel as to nullify some of its strength.

[matrixschmatrix]

There's a lot about Mr. Deeds Goes to Town that I like, but the depiction of slick, mean city folk looking down on good, honest small town people gets pretty exhausting- as a portrait of a likable eccentric, it's a lot of fun, but whenever it feels like Cooper is meant to represent the Honest Everyman it gets eyeroll-worthy.

The big insanity thing at the end didn't seem like it made a lot of sense, either- since when can you get someone committed on an accusation? Why would the estate go to the next of kin even if he weren't competent? Since when can you put someone's sanity on trial in the first place? It seems pointlessly melodramatic, particularly given the silly "he won't defend himself" thing, and it seems like a metaphor for the New Deal that never actually makes sense within the plot. Which is funny, given that Capra himself was apparently passionately anti-New Deal.

I'd thought it was kind of nice to have Deeds rejected by the small-town folk themselves at the end, and that it went a fair way towards redeeming some of the false city/small town dichotomy they've set up (in the direction of everyone being kind of a closed-minded jerk, but still), but of course it takes that back during Cooper's big defense, which was a little disappointing.

Cooper's really likable, though, and sells the character really well.

[knives]

This doesn't answer all of your problems, but with basically anything you have to go, "well they're not on my earth anyways." The insanity stuff makes well enough sense in the world that they've constructed and I don't remember it contradicting itself in anyway.

[Wu.Qinghua]

Personally I'll be running up the drapeau tricolore for the vast majority of the upper echelons ...
La Petite Lise, La Belle Equipe and at least 2 more Duvivs 2 Renoirs and 2 Carnes still slugging it out for those podium places.

Thanks to Nabob's praise and some very lucky circumstances, I've been able to see Grémillon's Petite Lise. Usually I am neither fond of movies prominently featuring Jewish pawnbrokers nor of visiting 'origins' of historical movements, but, oh, I love this dark little movie with its simple narrative, its well-crafted, atmospheric soundtrack and its lyrical, descriptive design, which make it a forerunner of later poetic realist films like 'Quai de brumes'. As far as I know, it hasn't been released with proper English subtitles yet, but it's well worth a look, if you manage to hunt it down ...

Have you seen Tevya? It inspired Fiddler on the Roof, but don't hold that against it... it might possibly be the greatest of the extant Yiddish films.

I've also seen Tevye (Maurice Schwartz, USA 1939) these days. Well, I concede, that Schwartz' drama differs from 'Uncle Moses' in its superior production values. It is somewhat less theatrical, better orchestrated and features another awesome performance by the director itself. All in all, it's a very impressive movie with its dramatization of the life of the Eastern European Jewry in tsarist Russia, its description of everyday racism and forced expulsion as well as its critique of the erosion of traditional Jewish culture in Europe and USA in the 1930s. But I share the contemporary critiques, which Hoberman reports in 'Bridge of Light'. Firstly, in contrast to Schwartz' multifaceted portrayal of the sweatshop despot in 'Uncle Moses', the Ukrainian peasants are contemptuously portrayed as boorish, uncivilized brutes, spending their time brawling, drinking excessively and sleeping with their boots on. Secondly, although I can see good reasons for strengthening ethnic etc. borders back then, I am not happy with Schwartz' resolute rejection of intermarriage etc. and his (powerful, no doubt) performative celebration of patriarchal family structures and orthodox fatherhood. All in all, I found 'Tevye' to be very interesting and definitively recommend it. At the least,it's a telling time capsule. But I prefer Uncle Moses and will vote for it despite of all of its flaws ...

To end with another short recommendation: I've also been able to see Yidl mitn Fidl (aka Yiddle with his Fiddle aka Castle in the Sky, Joseph Green, Poland 1936). It's a Yiddish musical, which is set in mid-30s Poland and tells the story of an impoverished man, who leaves his hometown together with his daughter, who disguises herself as a man, in order to make a living as travelling klezmorim. It won't make my list, but it's a very charming movie and I can imagine, that it's of much interest for members, who love musicals and a little bit of gender trouble. It's been released on DVD in the US by the National Center for Jewish Film, but I do not recommend to buy it. The transfer leaves a lot to be desired and the subtitles are very sloppily made.

[matrixschmatrix]

Just finished Mark of the Vampire:

In many ways, it's an infinitely better movie than Dracula- though it doesn't have the mythic power that Dracula maintains, for all its faults, Mark is a movie with infinitely more personality in the filmmaking, and it feels like Browning actually gave a shit about this one. I enjoy how it comments on Dracula, too- while in that one, we spend most of the movie laying all the groundwork for establishing what a vampire is, how they operate, what they want, etc., in this one we more or less stay in Transylvania- everyone here knows vampire lore like the back of their hand, whether they believe it or not. Likewise, the signifiers for vampires are largely carried over- Lugosi, obviously, but the hilarious fake bat, the opossums representing rats, the big gothic castles, even the bride. But here, obviously, the implication is different:

Spoiler

Because it's all a hoax. I actually started wondering if that's where it was going almost immediately- the "it's a vampire!" stuff was all introduced too quickly for it to be played straight- but it really is a stroke of genius, highlighting how fakey all the special effects were, having Lugosi give a self-parody performance (the "looking spooky and walking around" scenes reminded me a lot of Plan 9, which in this context is actually a strength) followed by a few out-of-character lines where he speaks in a much less noticeable accent than he had in Dracula, and generally showing Browning and co. poking fun at the vampire imagery they'd been so vital in constructing. Barrymore's part- which is obviously very reminiscent of Dracula's Van Helsing- is well drawn too, riding a nice line between the appropriate nonsensical commands for a know it all hero in a movie based on mythology and pushing that nonsense so far that it's obvious the whole thing is a joke.

I don't think I liked this as much as Bride of Frankenstein- Browning, God help him, just doesn't seem to have been that gifted a director, and a lot of the movie is still fundamentally pretty creaky- but it was fun, and I'm glad to have watched it.

[PillowRock]

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Why would the estate go to the next of kin even if he weren't competent?

Even in the movie's fictional world, I don't think that the money would technically go to them (though it has been a while since I last watched the movie).

I believe that the deal was that if Deeds is declared incompetent then somebody (probably the next of kin, but I suppose that it could also be the lawyer / law firm) will be declared his official legal guardian with power of attorney over the estate / money. That isn't awarding them the money, but if the new executor is wholly unscrupulous (as those characters are depicted) then it is tantamount to doing so.

For a more modern example of a similar dynamic in a movie, albeit in a different country / legal system, look to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The title character having been institutionalized earlier in her life is why she still has a state appointed guardian overseeing her affairs during the movie (even though she is now living in an apartment on her own, holding a good job, etc.) That's why Lizbeth has to go ask some lawyer for permission to spend her own money to buy a new laptop when hers is destroyed.

[matrixschmatrix]

As for other '30s Sturges recommendations, I remember Thirty Day Princess being pretty good, if not essential viewing.

I just watched Thirty Day Princess, and I don't know that I have a lot to add to this- it's charming enough, but it's not anything like as Sturges-ey or as charming as The Good Fairy- it feels like a less-well-directed Lubitsch toss-off. Which, honestly, is not that bad of a thing to be, but I was hoping for more.

[matrixschmatrix]

God almighty, Make Way for Tomorrow is like being punched in the solar plexus. It's honest, it doesn't cheat by making Lucy and Barkley into saints nor the children into monsters, and everyone's actions are fairly reasonable, but Jesus, I was sobbing like a child for about 45 minutes of that thing.

(I don't know if spoilers are necessary here, but better safe than sorry I suppose)

Spoiler

The amazing part is, it's not the tragic things that make you want to cry- there are more than enough of them, and they're difficult to watch, but the part where I first got really hit was when Lucy preempts her son to tell him she wants to go to the old age home. Her dignity there, and her refusal to let him control the situation, are incredibly moving- but that whole last scene where she and Barkley are together again are like nothing I've ever seen. Even the parts where it's funny, they're cracking each other up and correcting one another and acting like adorable old people, I was sort of crying and laughing at the same time.

It's almost hard to believe that Lucy and Barkley aren't a real couple, with a real lifetime of 50 years spent together- their relationship is so strong, and so moving, that it pulls the movie out of what might otherwise have felt like a social problem film and a wallow in misery (albeit a well made one) and into something excruciatingly beautiful.