Michael Kerpan wrote:The set is dramatic looking, but --- Has anyone "re-packaged" the DVDs to make the DVDs easier to actually use.
I put all the discs for this set and the Murnau and Borzage set in slim CD cases. I still leave the boxes up on my oversized book/DVD shelf, since they look so nice (and, really, what's the point of buying expensive boxsets if you're not going to impress the company with them?) Maybe this has already been discussed earlier in the thread, but I love how the box seems to be going for the style and texture of old 78 albums.
I really should re-visit this whole set. I don't think I ever even finished making it through the entire thing. I will say, though, that I never quite understood the hate for Tobacco Road. It's been a few years since I watched it, but I remember being quite impressed with the way Ford, by the end of the film, manages to make the viewer sympathize with the otherwise terrible, revolting Lester family.
I think the reaction to Tobacco Road can be chalked up to the fact that its the most unapologetically bizarre film in Ford's canon. I've grown to appreciate it, but it was initially quite disorienting.
For me mixing that in with a political message the content of the film doesn't support is what frustrates. Redoing The Grapes of Wrath as a Boudu styled condemnation of those trumpeting the American poor with only self interest in mind is a great idea, but Ford's execution just turns it into some Ma and Pa Kettle geek show.
I find that Tobacco Road works as an exploitation film. I think of its characterizations as being in similar territory to something like Street Trash, to name a random example. All of the central characters are just awful, despicable beings, and yet I find some sort of pleasure in viewing their grimy way of life. Combine that with the gorgeous cinematography and studio setting, and it’s just such a bizarre, fascinating film.
Not that it’s any indication of the film’s quality, but I think Tobacco Road certainly didn’t turn out the way Ford intended. I’m sure so many people here know way more about this subject than I do, but just a quick glance at even the Wikipedia page for Tobacco Road digs up this quote from the man himself:
"We have no dirt in the picture. We've eliminated the horrible details and what we've got left is a nice dramatic story. It's a tear-jerker, with some comedy relief. What we're aiming at is to have the customers sympathize with our people and not feel disgusted."
Is Wikipedia pulling my leg here? Is Ford joking? Clearly that doesn’t describe the final product at all, but I think the unsympathetic portrayal of the Lesters is not entirely incompatible with the film’s political message. For me, that message acknowledges that the Lesters are awful people, but this is America and they should be allowed to live freely, without any interference from banks, on their little plot of land that they’ve tended for their entire lives. Sure, it’s a rather simple theme, but when I watched the film I was quite struck with the way my perspective of the Lesters changed so drastically once the threatening banker character was introduced.
Which is why I brought up the Boudu example and the key reason I find disappointment with the film. I think, whether real or not, that Ford quote is entirely correct in that the film feels soft and simple in regards to them and we don't get great enough a sense that they are cutting their own throats. The message of the film doesn't seem to work if the argument is one to the benefit of futility. The softness of the Lesters is exactly why the film strikes me as a geek show rather than a successful conveying of a political message.
Emak-Bakia wrote:
It's been a few years since I watched it, but I remember being quite impressed with the way Ford, by the end of the film, manages to make the viewer sympathize with the otherwise terrible, revolting Lester family.
The Lesters are figures of fun throughout. Apparently, audiences of the day enjoyed laughing at them (otherwise the Broadway run of the play would not have been the long-running success it was). Go figure--Lil Abner was popular too.
It's true that Ford builds sympathy for his characters, especially the father, over the course of the film. But after providing them with a deus ex machina for their troubles, the film's ending makes it clear that they will squander their reprieve. At which point, presumably, audiences of the day were supposed to slap their sides and shout, "Dog my cats! Once a cracker, always a cracker!"
Knives, I want to be sure that I’m entirely understanding your point. What do you consider the message of the film to be (or what message do you see the film attempting to get across)? I’m confused by what you mean when you write “benefit of futility.” When you say the Lesters are “soft” are you agreeing with Jack Phillips that they are “figures of fun throughout ” and not portrayed enough as vile beings?
Sorry to belabor this discussion, I just want to make sure that we’re on the same wavelength. It’s important to note that I have not seen Boudu (though I’ve been gradually prepping for a Renoir retrospective, so that will definitely be corrected soon) or any theatrical productions of Tobacco Road.
I feel the message the film is aiming for, and what that quote seems to support, is that these are terrible people unable or unwilling to be like the Joads and work for their own benefit. In modern terms I suppose they're supposed to be a textbook example of 'welfare queens' (god I hate myself for writing that). Yet, and this is something I support, we should give them that charity of public welfare anyways. It, like Boudu and Viridianna if that is a more familiar point of reference, seems to believe that charity in which the receiver does not have to conform to societies ideals and is given only because it is the right thing to do is the real charity. That's what I meant by benefit of futility. Ford attempts it in a less caustic way then those two which I appreciate, but to accomplish that he also reduces the vile nature of the Lesters. So to answer the first paragraph I don't think they are vile enough and instead the film treats them as harmless clowns.
That makes perfect sense to me. Everything I've written about the film is based on memories of memories from the single time I watched it a few years back. Your take on the Lesters is interesting to me because it’s very different from how I remember them being a plainly wretched bunch. I suppose I’ll have to add this one to the re-watch pile.
Watched "Tobacco Road" -- and have a seriously boggled mind. Definitely an uneven tone. Parts I felt a bit guilty laughing at -- seems like a precursor of both Beverly Hillbillies AND Dukes of Hazzard. Other parts had a serious undertone. And it really is often visually quite striking. Not on the level of Viridiana, but maybe Susana.
It seems like Ford drew on Murnau (City Girl), Renoir (Boudu) ... and Laurel & Hardy (among others) for Tobacco Road.
It also seems to prefigure Monty Python at times -- particularly in the sequences in which everyone in the scene winds up singing along with Sister Bessie.
William Tracy's laugh are the fire-cracklings of Hell.
It's my understanding that the original novel is not played for comedy. Maybe if Ford hadn't just come off Grapes he could have done something interesting there...
Michael Kerpan wrote:seems like a precursor of both Beverly Hillbillies AND Dukes of Hazzard.
To say nothing of God's Little Acre.
There seems to be quite a venerable 'moonshining' genre. In 1958 Robert Mitchum starred in Thunder Road, about a Korean war veteran coming back to take over his family moonshining business. In 1975 his son James Mitchum starred in Moonrunners, which the Dukes of Hazzard TV series was apparently inspired by (There is an interesting story related on one of the commentary tracks in the 42nd Street Forever compilation disc on which the Moonrunners trailer appears that when Dukes of Hazzard was remade in 2005 the studio forgot to credit this earlier film for providing the inspiration for the series, and they apparently had to pay out a hefty sum of money for the rights having made that mistake!)
Michael Kerpan wrote:Erskine Caldwell's novel is totally downbeat -- seems more grotesque in a lot of ways than Ford's movie (but not in a comic fashion).
The more significant work in the line of transmission is the stage play adapted by Jack Kirkland which opened on Broadway in 1933 and was still going strong when the Ford film (released 1941) went into production. At the time, Tobacco Road was the longest running play in history (and today remains, according to Wikipedia, the second-longest running non-musical), and its success was clearly the impetus for the film. Like the novel, the play was pretty downbeat--the old man's wife is hit and killed by Dude's car, for example, Pearl's escape from Lov is full of pathos, and even "sexy" Ellie May has a harelip. Nunnally Johnson's screenplay dropped all these negative elements and recast the piece as mainstream entertainment. The consequences are with us to this day.
Bessie also had a nasal deformity (making it look like she had a pig nose) -- at least in the book.
Frankly, while Ford's version is odd, I suspect it is more intriguing than a straightforward adaptation would have been. I think like (overall) the "absurdist" aspect of the film (but obviously no HGWMV).
It does make me wonder if we would ever get a film released this year using the totally outmoded Devil Wears Parada-style women's fashions of 2006 as a unique selling point in its marketing.
Born Reckless is a John Ford gangster film. It is not nearly as good as the WB gangster films (or Scarface) that rocked and transformed the genre at the same time, but taken as a progression from films like The Racket (to which it is fairly similar), it's a definite step forward.
That said, it is utterly boring, with a poor lead character and a screenwriting style that clearly relied on intertitles from the silent era. There is only one intertitle left in the film, to bridge between two scenes, the end of the scene before the title is a character going off to prison, the beginning of the next scene is the character returning from prison, and the intertitle explains that years later, when that character comes back. When that happened, I suddenly got why the plotting of the film was so shoddy, every 'progression' in the story, had this been a silent film, would have been explained by a transitional, time eliding intertitle like that one. But because this is an early sound film, almost all the intertitles have been taken out, which leaves you slightly disoriented several times in the film because it keeps leaping forward in time. It's logical, it's not hard to follow, but it's incredibly poorly handled by the screenplay. I would guess that the original script was either a carryover from the silent era, or had specified intertitles to explain the jumps forward in time.
But also of interest is that the final reel or two reels of the film, where it picks up after the war into prohibition are where the film gets good. As a short covering just the prohibition period, the film would be excellent, but it's got such a ponderous and boring beginning trying to make the main character more sympathetic (rather than just accepting him as an antihero), that the whole film has already collapsed by the time we get to the good parts.
The film is mostly noteworthy for the way Ford directs the male performance. As you can see with McLaglen, in Hangman's House, the lead actor here delivers the style--body language and facial expressions--of John Wayne years before Wayne became Ford's leading man. Ford had a way of directing his leading men to deliver the same performance when they had the gangster/cowboy/irish role, and you can see his directorial style have a pretty continuous progression on crafting performances distincitively. And the film also anticipates the ending of Stagecoach, that film features a rapid cameramove cutaway from the gunfight resolution, and this film does the same, with rapid reverse dolly whipping the camera backwards out of the room at the climax of the gunfight resolution so that the fatal gunshot is just barely obscured by the swinging saloon door. It's the best moment of the film, but it can't save what is overall a mediocre gangster film that was outdated before it was even released.
Last edited by movielocke on Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Up the River is just your average happy-go-lucky film set in prison in which Mickey and Judy put on a show! The opening shot features the cheerful prisoner band practicing and the other fellows playing a good ole american game of baseball!
Except there's no Mickey and Judy, but the terrible dialogue and the tone of this truly bizarre Ford film are spot on to those later films.
And yes, out of nowhere, completely disjointed and for no reason whatsoever there is a long scene of prisoners putting on a musical /vaudeville show, it even has blackface!
And if that's not enough, it's also a heartwarming sports tale in which the prisoners at one point will field a baseball team to battle another prison's rival baseball team! Spencer Tracy is the Pitcher! and the movie cuts to The End at precisely the moment he's about to throw his first pitch! Even better, they spend the entire final scene doing the Daffy Duck/Elmer Fudd bit from the cartoon in which they box each other. Spencer Tracy is Daffy! I'm not kidding, it's amazing, Looney Tunes lifted the entire scene almost verbatim.
But wait there's MORE!
It is also a romance, because Humphrey Bogart--who is both a well dressed, immaculately groomed clerk working for the prison and simultaneously a prisoner--falls in love with a down-on-her-luck gal who he has to process on her way in for a short stint. She falls for him too, she was CONNED into taking the fall for her scam-artist Boss who's grift is to sell junk stocks to unsuspecting old ladies in small towns (oh those filthy wall street types with their stocks, amiright?).
And that's not all!
Because Humphrey Bogart is out on parole and because his gal told her boss the name of Bogart he decides to blackmail Bogart as well, because Bogart comes from a good family and none of them know he was in prison for a year, they thought he was on business in China! So the Boss sets up shop in Bogart's town and is putting the con on his dear old mother!
But you didn't think that was everything, did you?
Because Spencer Tracy (Brain) and his buddy (Pinky) hear from Bogart's gal what her awful boss is doing and decide they need to take a short leave of absence from their prison so they can go help their buddy out with this nasty boss man. You heard right! it's also a prison break movie, complete with Hobo ride on a train and hilarious comedy! But they are good guys at heart, you know they are, because before they steal the paperwork for the phony stocks they go on a small town hayride with the locals and sing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and then, since they are such nice guys they return to prison, after all, they have a baseball game to win!
This is such a richly terrible film that is so superbly bad and featuring great actors (and Humphrey Bogart is really trying hard in his role, and he's actually pretty good) that I'm a little shocked it isn't better known. I loved it, but it is in no way shape or form a good film.
Last edited by movielocke on Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Seas Beneath showcases Ford displaying an affinity for the open water I've not seen before. Perhaps its because his later films set on water were all when he was more of an alcoholic, and it was harder for him to stay focused? (I'm referring to Ford's tendency post war, after wrapping a picture, to go on a one-three month bender on his sailboat, so I think those later water pictures he probably had a hard time resisting the programmed habit of drinking nonstop?) Regardless, this is easily the most beautiful of Ford's water films, the film is chuck full of stunning compositions, so many brilliant shots are casually all over the place.
And Ford just Loves the look of things, the feel of things, the rhythms and routines of being on the water. He lets shots run long and linger, I would guess there are dozens shots that were probably shot with no coverage in order to force the editor to keep the pace languid. It gets extreme, at times in the picture, sometimes Ford seems more or less indifferent to his actors, more interested in the boats and seascapes he was shooting as actors are buried in the middle or background of a shot--clearly the focus is on what Ford loves: Boats. And that lends the entire film a passion that is lacking from the other early sound films in the set, you can feel the full force of his attention on this film and it elevates a mediocre WWI script into something that could very nearly be great with better writing and a bit less cliche plotting. Ford singlehandedly makes this film way better than it has any right to be with a script that isn't even as good as WBs terrible military films from later in the decade (that all bizarrely were nominated for best picture).
The plot could be great, a three masted merchant sailing ship is outfitted with a big gun, a crack crew (in disguise) and a group of novices (also in disguise) and then tows a submarine out into UBoat territory (never running its engine so the Uboats don't know its there). The merchant ship is basically bait to try and ambush a notorious UBoat.
The ship puts into the Canary Islands and naturally run into Germans there. After they leave the islands, the rest of the film is a fairly languid action packed naval battles between the various ships. In the middle of the battle, Ford throws in one of his all time most effective close up shots he ever filmed. The german captain of the UBoat is looking through his periscope midbattle, and Ford cuts from a wide, into a medium closeup and then he goes into an extreme closeup, cutting off the top of his head and his chin so we can see how he's just barely shaking, sweating and incredibly nervous. The guy playing the german was probably the best actor in the film, on the other hand, he was the only guy in the film that gets a real closeup, so perhaps it biased me.
Interestingly, Ford lets ALL of the Germans speak German. Entire scenes are played out entirely in German, once about every ten lines the film cuts to an intertitle (like a silent film or Eskimo) to translate the most crucial thrust of the conversation. The optical printer not yet invented, this was their only option to translate foreign language dialogue. This gives the film a marvelous authenticity lacking from most other hollywood films pre and post WWII, and is pretty unique since it's not just a handful of lines here or there rather the film is about 20% German dialogue.
Unfortunately it's not a great film, but it is absolutely essential John Ford, and the first worthwhile film he made in the Sound Era.
