The Film Pasture Toasts Movies

There's nothing better than watching a movie.  Nothing that is except watching that movie while enjoying your favorite adult beverage with friends.  On today's podcast, we celebrate alcohol and film.  First, we talk with Clint from Alcohollywood about the art of drinking games and mixing the perfect movie-themed cocktail.  Then, we talk with Vern from Vern's Video Vanguard about his favorite alcohol-fueled movies.

The Film Pasture can be downloaded through iTunes or Podomatic.  Please visit iTunes and give the show a review.  It really helps get the show, the LAMB and all its members noticed.

If you are interested in being a guest or have any feedback for the show, you can let us know at thefilmpasture@verizon.net or on twitter @filmpasture.

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The Struggle (1931)

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Hal Skelly, Zita Johann, Charlotte Wynters
Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions 

It's the early 1920s and Jimmie is in love with Florrie.  There's only one problem: Jimmie enjoys drinking.  Florrie does not approve so right then and there, Jimmie resolves to never drink again.

Flash forward a few years. Jimmie and Florrie are married and have a child. He has apparently managed to remain sober.  One day, Jimmy's coworker is laid off and the husband decides to have a drink with him. And another. And another.

Jimmy's alcoholism is back now stronger than ever and threatens to destroy his entire family.  Can Jimmie pull out of the tailspin his life has become? Or will he continue to live as the most stereotypical drunk that has ever graced the silver screen?


I hated this movie.  There is literally almost nothing this film does well.

First, it starts with this pointless jumping through time.  Seemingly the only point of these scenes is to make jokes about stuff from history that the audience knows the result of.  So we get one scene with people expounding upon how Woodrow Wilson would be a terrible President because he's a college professor, immediately followed by someone commenting in the early 1920s that they should keep all of their money in stocks because by 1930 they'll be rich.  Get it? Wilson was actually a good President! And the stock market crash happened in 1929 so that woman would have no money!  Isn't that great stuff?

We then get into the main story which revolves around Jimmy's alcoholism.  This basically means it's an hour of Hal Skelly as Jimmie, stumbling around and slurring his words.  There is no moderation in his performance.  He's either sober or completely hammered.

Fortunately, he has Florrie to support him. And by "support him," I mean she alternates between blank stares and repeating "Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie! Jimmie!" ad nauseum.

The film is shot by Griffith as though he recording a play.  He's making a talkie, but it still looks and feels like a silent from 12 years earlier.  Hell, his own Broken Blossoms was more compelling than this.

Griffith used to have an ear and an eye for melodrama, but he also used to have actors like Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish helping him out.  No one is going to confuse anyone involved with this for actors of that character.

Griffith's work has always had a bit of self-importance, but it seems like his career has been a decade-long slow decline to this absolute nadir.  The only thing that may help this film is adding a laugh track and trying to make it a comedy.

Which is a damn shame.  This was Griffith's last feature.  I wanted to see him go out on top.

* out of *****

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Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

Directed by F.W. Murnau

Starring Anne Chevalier, Matahi and Hitu

On a small South Pacific island, the tribal men hunt fish using spears and the women... well, they frolic in pools of water and slide down waterfalls as though they are at a water park. It's paradise. 

The best of of the spear fishers is Matahi, making him quite the catch for the ladies. Matahi however only has eyes for Reri, the beautiful daughter of the chieftain. 

Fate soon introduces an obstacle to their burgeoning romance. The king of the islands decrees that Reri must remain a virgin to satisfy their gods. She is tabu, and for a man to even look at her with lust in his eyes means death. 

Matahi is exactly the kind of restless youth who refuses to take "no" for an answer. He sneaks Reri away and together they row to a distant island, half-dead but together. 

Matahi recovers his strength and soon becomes renowned as the best pearl diver in his new home. Unfortunately, he has little concept of money and willingly signs the receipts to keep the booze flowing at a huge party. 

This debt becomes a major problem when the king's emissary tracks the couple down. The penniless Matahi sneaks off to dive in an area labeled with a "Tabu" sign post. It seems a maneating shark has killed all the divers who have attempted to swim there. The boy hopes to find a big enough pearl to charter an escape voyage. 

For her part, Reri fears for the life of her lover and agrees to return to be "tabu." 

 Will Matahi best the shark and find treasure? And can the two lovers remain together? 

 I should love Tabu. 

It's the final movie of F. W. Murnau before he tragically died in a car crash. Murnau has easily been my favorite director of the 1920s. 

Also, at the risk of psychoanalyzing Murnau, it feels like an attempt to extend his middle finger in Hollywood's direction. After poor box office receipts for his first U.S. films, he retreats to a Pacific island to shoot a film entirely populated by natives. At a time when talkies were taking hold, he shoots a silent film with almost no intertitles. That kind of anti-establishment sentiment feels like a perfect set-up for me to fall head-over-heels for a movie.

So why does the film leave me cold despite its tropical setting? 

As with most things, it comes down to the script. We get one scene between our star-crossed lovers before she is declared "tabu" and ripped from Matahi. We never get a sense of who they are and why they are fated to be together in the first place. 

It's an odd omission and not one from which the film can ever recover. The audience has to feel the stakes in a love story like this and that all flows from us being invested in these two people getting together. That never happens. 

Instead, we get prolonged sequences showing tribal dancing and other rituals the islanders engage in. These are fascinating to watch, but their length does little to advance the story. 

When they finally reach the island that they hope will be there escape, we start to get a sense of who Matahi is, but we only see him through the eyes of a French officer. And this foreigner sees Matahi as a gifted diver who is naive in the ways of the world. We aren't meeting our characters; we are getting other people's impression of them. 

The film's structure seems to constantly function to keep the audience at arms length from its characters. It should be cajoling us to embrace them. 

As Tabu moves toward its climax the only two things we have learned about Matahi are that he is reckless and he loves Reri. We also find that despite being told he is naive about money, he knows how to bribe an officer and charter a boat. That's it. 

Reri fares better. She agrees to go back to her home because she knows the alternative is death for the man she loves. There is a reasonableness and maturity to her approach to their dilemma. 

The two neophyte actors who anchor the film do their best to make Matahi and Reri more fully formed characters. Anne Chevalier is particularly good as Reri. You can see her concern and thoughts in every frame. 

Because it's Murnau, the visuals are gorgeous. After a career of shooting cityscapes and buildings as one of the masters of German expressionism, he shows a surprisingly light touch in filming the sumptuous climes of Bora Bora. 

Still, Tabu is at best a good film. It's a beautiful structure, but its foundation is a script that is as shifty and porous as the sands on the film's many beaches. 

**1/2 out of *****

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M (1931)

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut 
Produced by Nero-Film AG

As a parent, there is no end of stuff that freaks me out.  Every day is a constant stream of thoughts like: "Did I forget to sign him up for basketball?" and "What are they serving at snack time to my son with the peanut allergy?"

Of course, the biggest constant fear is that something horrible will happen to them. Something so horrible, parents usually won't describe it.  Because to say it out loud, is to acknowledge that there are people in this world who will engage in the cruelest behavior possible: snuffing out the life of a young innocent.

M is about such a person.  When we meet Hans Beckert for the first time, we only see his silhouette cast upon the poster announcing the reward for the capture of a serial killer of children.  He entreats young Elsie Beckmann with a balloon and the two are soon walking hand-in-hand.

We also see Elsie's mother's growing concern as she stares at the clock, busies herself around the house to try to take her mind off her tardy daughter, until she cannot take it anymore, and must open the window and scream for her daughter.

The moment closes with amongst the most haunting images I have ever seen placed into film. A close-up of Elsie's ball rolling to a stop in a vacant field, followed by the image of the balloon Elsie had just been given tangled briefly in some power lines before blowing away.

Fritz Lang knows parents.  He knows what frightens us.  He doesn't have to show us Elsie's fate.  Our imaginations will create a worse hell than any Lang could devise.


What's fascinating to me is that Lang takes that moment and turns it into a mirror against which society in Berlin is to be judged.  M is never actually about this serial killer; it's about what he does to this city.

Without ever showing us what his Berlin is like before the murderer's atrocities, Lang tells us everything we need to know.  It's structured.  The police investigate crimes using tried and trued methodologies.  The children travel to and from school without care.  And the criminals have their own hierarchy with divisions and structure to carry out their illicit, but lucrative actions in the most efficient way possible.

Berlin is all about its structures.  There is a comfort to how even the criminals are organized.  Lang shows us these structures everywhere.  There is a geometry of squares and circles in almost every shot of the film.  And the film ultimately introduces Beckert not simply as a random murderer, but as a monkeywrench thrown into the machinery of the city's very functioning.

The police at first are clueless how to respond.  They put up posters and round up the usual suspects (to borrow a phrase from another classic).  When they finally turn to profiling and more "modern" crime detection techniques, it's foreign to these law enforcers.  After all, the killer must be one of the known criminal underground, right?

For its part, the well-organized bad guys are seeing the increased activity by the police as a significant disruption to their operations.  How can they gamble and steal if their places are constantly being raided?  The criminals themselves come up with their own plan: to protect the children and catch the murderer themselves.

What follows is dueling investigative procedurals.  In one camp, you have the police profiling recent parolees and visiting their homes to search for clues that may lead to the killer by using a letter he sent to the police and the newspapers.  In the other, the criminals use beggars to track the city's children and report suspicious activities.

Both efforts ultimately prove successful, so it becomes a race to see who will get Beckert first.  The criminals ultimately win out.  They see him take another little girl and one of the beggars places a chalk "M" on the back of Beckert's jacket, leading to the film's signature chase through the streets of Berlin.  They track him to an office building and wait until the end of the workday when everyone leaves.

When the criminals are sure he has not left, they break into the building to search for and find the murderer.  Just as they discover Beckert's hiding place, one of the building's watchman triggers an alarm, alerting the police.  The posse hightails it out, but one of their number is captured by the police.

Beckert is taken to an old distillery where an impromptu kangaroo court is set up to try the killer.  He even gets his own defense "counsel," but clearly the criminals want to see Hans executed.

I have not really described Beckert much to this point and that's because to this point he's been an object.  All we know is he has committed unspeakable acts and is being hunted.  At the court, we finally get to meet him.  And he's pathetic.  He has urges he tries to fight but cannot.  He blacks out when killing the children.  He begs for his life.  He's not the monster you'd envision.

He and his counsel even turn the tables back on the criminals, pointing out that his unspeakable crimes are the result of an uncontrolled sickness, while his judges kill, steal and grift as their living.  The appeal doesn't matter. A blind balloon salesman identifies the killer by the tune he whistles and the assembled jury prepares to carry out sentencing.  Then suddenly, they freeze, drop their weapons and slowly raise their hands.

The police have gotten the location of the distillery from the man they captured at the office building and arrive to make the save.  It's the conclusion of the tale and really messes with the audience's head.  On the one hand, you want Beckert dead.  He deserves to die and his sickness just means he will likely kill again.

On the other hand of course is the question of what justice means.  Should Beckert be gunned down by other criminals in a distillery?  Or should he get his day in court?

Noticeably absent throughout much of the film are the women.  Elsie's mom is there in the beginning and there are a couple of women at the kangaroo court.  But Elsie's mom receives the final word of the film.  She points out that nothing will bring her daughter back.  She reminds us that a fundamental purpose of society should be to protect the children and that no one is excused from that responsibility.

I'm a parent.  M makes me want to hold my children a little tighter.  It also makes me hope that as my children gain independence and venture out into the world, that it's a world that is up to the admonition of Elsie's mother.

***** out of *****

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The Public Enemy (1931)

Directed by William A. Wellman

Starring  James Cagney, Jean Harlow and Edward Woods

Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures 

It's the turn of the century and for Tommy and Matt, a couple of kids in the city, there's no end to the opportunities available, so long as you don't mind breaking a law or two.  As they grow up, the scores become bigger and they start getting jobs from their fence, Putty Nose.  Unfortunately, a job goes south and their boss skips town.

Never ones for sitting idly by, the boys join up with Paddy Ryan's gang just as Prohibition opens the floodgates for gang activity.  Soon, Tommy and Matt are stealing booze and "persuading" local speakeasies to stock their product.  Everyone's happy except Tommy's straight-laced brother Mike who has just returned from World War I.

Tommy is enjoying a life of women and booze, while Matt looks to settle down.  However, when a gang war breaks out, Tommy and Matt are caught in the crossfire.  Can either of them escape the life they have fallen into? And why is Jean Harlow the second name in these credits?

In watching The Public Enemy, you can't help but see the prototype for most mob films of the last century. The appeal of the stories are pretty simple and straightforward: 

Escalation and stakes. 

We always seem to start with the small time hood, begging the bosses for a modest payout. You show some guts and initiative, you move up. But the tasks become worse. The question of every gangster film is fundamentally do the ends justify the means? Can you have it all and not lose your soul? 

For Tommy Powers (James Cagney), living the gangster life is worth anything. It gives him power and money, but it also provides a second family. 

Tommy has two brothers in the movie. His real brother Mike holds an honest job, goes to night school and cares for their mother. His mob brother Matt is willing to go along with whatever the latest score is. We all know which brother Tommy is going to choose. Mike is a chump and Matt is the guy you go to war with.

Tommy doesn't just have a brother though. He has a father or two. First, small time boss "Putty Nose" teaches him the value of loyalty and honor by betraying him. Tommy learns his lesson and, when he joins Paddy Ryan's gang, he is cautious at first. Once he decides Paddy is trustworthy? Tommy is 100 percent his man.

It's impossible to overstate how good James Cagney is here.  On paper, you should absolutely hate Tommy.  Cagney infuses the character with a combination of mischievousness and charm that is absolutely compelling on the screen.  True stars have a natural charisma and Cagney is blessed with that in spades.

Jean Harlow gets second billing here based on name recognition, but she is barely in this film.  Tommy is not looking for a commitment and Harlow's Gwen fits the bill perfectly as a woman attracted to bad boys.

As the movie raced towards its conclusion, there was a moment I thought it would flinch and not follow Tommy's tale through to its logical end.  Fortunately, the film zigs and zags in its final frames and gives us the perfect final image. 

The Public Enemy is not a great film for its time; it's a great film, period.  Highly recommend for the prototypical mob story as brought to you by a true movie star.

***** out of *****

NOTE: There's a scene where Cagney is being shot at and he ducks behind a wall as chunks of the brick are struck by bullets.  How'd they pull off the effect? By actually firing bullets at the wall inches from Cagney's face.

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The Film Pasture Looks at the Oscars!

The latest episode of The Film Pasture is now available where we examine the Academy Awards from soup to nuts.  We talk through the rules of the ceremony, the art of Oscar predicting and event the awards show's relevance in contemporary film culture. Guests are Never Too Early Movie Predictions, The Gold Knight and the Public Transportation Snob.

You can download The Film Pasture through the Large Association of Movie Blogs or you can subscribe through iTunes or Podomatic. As always, take a moment to give us an iTunes rating!

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Rewatching Dracula (1931)

Directed by Tod Browning

Starring Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler and David Manners

Produced by Universal Pictures

Dracula is a bit of a puzzle. 

It's a film everyone thinks they have seen, but have you really? 

For me, it had been well over ten years since I last watched it, so I was anxious to revisit it when 1931 rolled around. 

What struck me most is just how hazy my memory was of the film. Bela Lugosi's Dracula has been reduced over the last 70 years to a guy in a cape who can't pronounce the letter 'w.' 

But Lugosi has a lot more than that going on. He never really goes big or chews the scenery. He's not some over-powered supernatural being. He must rely on cunning and stealth to achieve his bloody goals. 

Lugosi is perfect in switching between the traveling aristocrat and the mind-controlling vampire. You realize watching it today that his accent is functional; its a disarming shield that intrigues his potential victims. 

The other element that struck me this time was the production design. I had remembered moments, but scene by scene, shot by shot, this film is beautiful to watch. The count's Transylvanian castle. Mina's bedroom. Dracula crypt. And of course, that vast, neverending stone stair where Renfield meets his demise. 

As with any film, there are problems as well, especially with the pacing. We often smash cut from one scene to another and have little idea where we are or with whom. The movie eventually catches you up, but its disorienting (and not in a positive way). 

And Dracula just ends. Abruptly. You're waiting for the next line or scene and instead you fade to the ending credit. 

Besides Lugosi, the rest of the actors are blank slates, which works for purposes of the movie. After all, if everyone is merely food to you, how many distinct character traits would you notice? 

The only regrettably notable exception to this is Dwight Frye as Renfield. I dislike the tendency to go ridiculously over the top with the character, which is a tradition that finds its start right here. Tom Waits remains my favorite on screen iteration of the character. 

Dracula holds a well-earned spot in the pantheon of monster movies. Anchored by Lugosi's pitch perfect performance and Browning's arresting visuals, it remains a timeless classic. Definite must see.

****1/2 out of *****

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1931: We Build the Empire State Building (and Hope There Are No Large, Rampaging Apes Around)

Welcome to 1931. We are at the height of the Great Depression. Over 2,000 banks are failing. Prices are dropping. Things generally suck. 

The Empire State Building is completed meaning we now have a significant film landmark for everything from King Kong to Sleepless in Seattle to take advantage of. The Star-Spangled Banner becomes the national anthem (providing a rousing, but melancholy song for Bane to blow up Gotham City's stadium to). Ten cents gets you a gallon of gas, and eight cents, a loaf of bread. 

In movies, a couple of mainstay genres take root. The gangster film takes off with James Cagney in The Public Enemy. Universal kicks off its popular monster movies with Dracula and Frankenstein. We also get Fritz Lang's suspenseful M. 

Sadly, we lose a couple of important figures in film. Thomas Edison, whose inventions powered the industry, died at the age of 84. More tragically, F. W. Murnau was killed in a car crash. He's been my favorite classic director so far. It will be bittersweet to watch 1931's Tabu (his final film). 

So what are watching? Honestly, looking at 1931, I am salivating. Clearly, all of the films I mentioned above. In addition, there's Charlie Chaplin's City Lights, an early version of The Maltese Falcon, a well-regarded Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... and the Academy Award winner Cimarron. All that and some surprises along the way to be sure.

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