April 2013 ~ mmp

Monday, 22 April 2013

Lonely Wives (1931)

Posted on 03:00 by Unknown

Directed by Russell Mack

Starring Edward Everett Horton, Esther Ralston, Laura La Plante

Produced by Pathé Exchange

Renowned lawyer Richard "Dickie" Smith is all over the papers for a recent high-profile acquittal he successfully tried, but back home he has nothing but problems.

His wife Madeleine and her mother believe (and rightfully so) that he is a philanderer. He is all business during the day, but once eight o'clock hits, his personality switches and he chases every skirt in sight.

This proves particularly problematic on the day he is trying out a new secretary, the beautiful Kitty "Minty" Minter. He's unimpressed with her typing and dictation skills, but once the clock chimes he's only too pleased to watch her "wiggle."

Complicating matters further, Minty's friend Diane O'Dare is looking for a divorce from her vaudevillian performer husband The Great Zero and wants to take advantage of Smith's sexual proclivities to get him to take the case.

Smith sets up a late night rendezvous with both Minty and Diane, but Dickie's mother-in-law won't let him leave the house. Fortunately, The Great Zero shows up to ask Smith's permission to impersonate the lawyer in his act. Once the actor dons some make up, his resemblance to Smith is uncanny. The doppelgänger gives the lothario the perfect means to sneak out.

Now Smith and The Great Zero have switched places, but can they carry out the ruse? And what will the impersonator do when, surprise!, Madeleine returns home early from her trip?

Lets be clear up front: Lonely Wives is not a good movie. No way, no how.

The direction takes its cue from silent films ten years older. It's a series of medium shots, filming the action from the same angles repeatedly. It's so stagey, you expect if the camera ever did pull back, you'd see footlights.

The actors don't do anything to assuage these concerns. They talk and behave as if in a theater with an audience. There are even bizarre pauses after the laugh lines. Every line sounds like it belongs in a play, not a movie.

This movie does have a little to recommend though. For one thing, this is about as pre-Code as a film can get. For those unaware, the "Code" in question is the Hays Code, adopted in 1930 but not enforced until 1934, which regulated the content of films based on moral concerns. Every other line of dialogue in Lonely Wives is a double entendre that would have definitely not made it past the censors.

Some examples (courtesy of IMDB):

Smith: [Attempting to ask her out] What have you got on tonight?
Minter: Nothing I can't get out of. Why?

Smith: Oh, you have a pretty mouth!
Minter: Aw, I like your moustache.
Smith: Really? Well, shall we introduce them?

So if you've heard the term pre-Code and wondered what that was about, Lonely Wives is a good primer.

The other noteworthy element if the film is technical. In several scenes, Horton plays both Dickie and The Great Zero and, through the magic of double exposure, the two appear on screen together.

The effect is seamless, so much so that I wondered at first if it was a different actor. There are movies made today using green screens that don't carry off the effect convincingly.

Unfortunately for Lonely Wives, if I'm reaching for specific snippets of dialogue and a special effect as the primary selling points of a movie, it cannot be all that great. I'm sure this would have been wonderful on a stage 80 years ago. Sadly, on the big screen, Lonely Wives is only...

*1/2 out of *****

Posted in 1931, lonely wives, russell mack | No comments

Friday, 19 April 2013

Monkey Business (1931)

Posted on 03:00 by Unknown

Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Starring The Marx Brothers
Produced by Paramount Pictures

The Marx Brothers stow away on an ocean liner.

Hilarity ensues.

Do you really need more plot?

Okay, now I get The Marx Brothers. Sort of.

For most of its runtime, Monkey Business has no real plot except for allowing the comedy troupe to run amok on a cruise ship. The sheer anarchy they represent within the ordered world of this boat is loaded with potential humor and the characters mine every bit of it.

For half the movie, we basically get a series of skits involving the characters trying to outwit the crew and passengers of the ship. Groucho fast talks his way into the captain's quarters with Chico and manages to get dinner before being chased out. Harpo hides within a puppet show and almost fools the captain into believing he's a wooden doll. Zeppo of course takes the opportunity to hit on the ladies on each deck when he's not outrunning security. It's each of the brothers being put to their best use without ever overstaying their welcome.

There's an energy to the action that keeps the film moving. Unlike the static shots that marked the previous Marx films, the camera here is every bit as fidgety as the brothers. The director doesn't simply shoot the action; he maximizes the humor of each scene.

Where the movie fumbles is when the script decides it should focus on a plot. Once we introduce a mob boss plot, you can almost here the film let out an exasperated sigh and mutter "Fun's over, guys. The studio execs just showed up."

That's not to say there's no fun to be had during Monkey Business' second half. It's just that the breakneck pace slows to a crawl and the jokes are fewer and less funny.

All in all, this is the best realization of the potential demonstrated by the hijinks of the Marx Brothers. I really wish the story would stop getting in their way.

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

Posted in 1931, marx brothers, monkey business, Norman Z McLeod | No comments

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Welcome to the LAMMY-nominated 100 Years of Movies

Posted on 19:50 by Unknown

That's right, my little corner of the interwebs has been nominated for the 2013 LAMMY as Best Classic Film Blog.

A sincere thank you to anyone who voted for me to be nominated. As you all know, writers tend to be islanded and are never sure how exactly they are doing. So the phrase "it's an honor to be nominated" is more than a cliche here. It's absolute truth.

I am nominated against four other blogs: Where Danger Lives, Criterion Reflections, Journeys in Classic Film, and Once Upon a Screen. Each of them is an absolutely deserving candidate and you should check them out. It should be a fun couple if weeks of campaigning.

Ah, yes. Campaigning.

I take my films pretty seriously, but in all other respects I tend to try to keep the mood light. So obviously I will be trying to have as much fun as possible with this during campaign season. Twitter will be the best place to follow my drive to be crowned greatest classic film blog in the universe!

If you are a LAMB and reading this, please make sure to vote. Pretty please. You can vote here. Obviously, I'd love your vote but the most important thing is to head to the LAMB and poke the surveymonkey.

(See, I just put a dirty thought in your head.)

Be sure to visit all of the nominees and happy voting!

Posted in lammy | No comments

Platinum Blonde (1931)

Posted on 03:00 by Unknown

Directed by Frank Capra
Loretta Young, Robert Williams, and Jean Harlow
Produced by Columbia Pictures

Stew Smith is the ace reporter for The Post and regularly gets the big assignments. When he's not chasing down leads, he's killing time with his best friend in the newsroom, the lovely Gallagher.

Smith gets assigned to track down claims that the wealthy Schuyler family paid off a chorus girl to drop a civil suit against the family's womanizing son Michael.

Smith and a rival reporter from the Tribune are allowed to interview the family. The other reporter leaves with a bribe to drop the issue, but Smith is made of sterner stuff. First, he tricks the Schuyler matriarch into admitting the payoff, but seems swayed by the advances of her daughter Anne. However, in the end Smith calls his editor with the scoop, enraging the family.

The next day Smith returns with letters he had found from Michael to the chorus girl, providing salacious details about the affair. Anne offers a sizable bribe to Smith, but the reporter refuses the money and returns the letters, simply stating the previous story was news, but the letters would not.

Anne is intrigued by Smith and the two spend the afternoon together. She begins seeing him and the couple spontaneously elope, much to the dismay of both Mrs. Schuyler and Gallagher (who has been pining for Smith).

But marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. Anne is trying to mold Stew into a proper gentleman, but the very independent reporter has his own ideas. Can the two making it work? And just how will Smith find his muse to finish a play he's been writing on the side?

Platinum Blonde has a very basic setup. It's a guy falling for the wrong girl while the perfect girl is under his nose all along. We have all seen it before.

So why is this film so engaging?

There are plenty of reasons. Williams as Stew Smith for starters. He plays the character just right. Instead of the pronounced gesticulations of the silent era, Williams gives a smooth, natural performance. There are any number of moments he could come off as obnoxious or whiny or petulant, but he strikes just the right balance to keep Smith charming and likable. The audience wants to see him win here and that is not the easiest trick to pull off when your character is constantly making bad decisions.

The second standout here though is Frank Capra. He keeps the action moving by striking a middle ground between the stagy presentations by most directors and the wild zooms and angles of Murnau.

The film features some nice tracking shots (as when the camera follows Smith and Anne through the Schuyler estate during one of their initial meetings). There is a beautiful moment with the couple where we see their first romantic moment shot through stained glass as rain drips down the window.

The final star of this film is the script. It's an early prototype for all the screwball comedies to come. There's a rat-a-tat-tat to a lot of Williams delivery. When the dialogue picks up, Capra just settles down with camera and let's the actors and the words carry the action.

I have not mentioned the two stars most would be familiar with. Loretta Young has almost nothing to do here. Her job is basically to hang in the background and wait to see if the man she loves will come to his senses. Young's fine, but never really gets a moment to shine.

Jean Harlow may have the toughest job in the film and I think if the script fails anyone, it's her. She at first seems to genuinely fall in love with Stew, but later she treats him like a reclamation project. It's possible both motivations are there together, but neither the writer nor Harlow really work to clarify things.

Because of where the film wants to go, the third act goes off the rails. Stew inadvertently throws a party at the Schuyler's mansion and things get out of hand. However, they never really establish that Stew's friends all have mentality of frat boys. With how tight s lot of the early plot feels, having things just loosen up completely feels wrong.

There are so many weird decisions at the end of the film, even Stew seems surprised when he finally chooses between Anne and Gallagher. There's no build up; it just...happens.

The film has a broad thematic concern with class, but I don't really think it has a ton to say on the subject. It's all surface level and even when it does something subtle (like naming our working class hero "Smith" and the Schuyler's butler "Smythe"), they have to call it out with a "Did you see what we did there?" nudge.

There's quite a bit I like here and more I merely admire. Platinum Blonde isn't perfect. It isn't laugh out loud funny. It is a helluva fun time though.

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

NOTE: Never heard of Williams? There's a reason. Four days after the film's release, the actor had an acute appendicitis and died. It's a tragedy we didn't get to see what might have been.

NOTE: Just because, here's one of my favorite little exchanges in the movie. It's Stew talking with the Schuyler's butler Smythe about puttering:

Posted in 1931, frank capra, jean harlow, loretta young, platinum blonde | No comments

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

The Champ (1931)

Posted on 03:58 by Unknown

Directed by King Vidor

Starring Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper and Irene Rich

Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Former heavyweight "Champ" Purcell is a mess. He drinks too much. He gambles away any meager earnings he has. When he gets a chance to return to the ring, he shows up in front of the promoter drunk and out of shape.

His vices force his young son Dink to be the man of the house. Champ loves his son, but cannot overcome his vices. When the father does finally see a gambling winning streak, he takes the money and buys Dink a horse.

Dink's pet is brought to the track as a race horse, where the boy and his father encounter Linda and Tony. Linda is actually Champ's former wife and Dink's mom. The fighter agrees to let Dink spend some time with Linda.

However, Dink does not care at all for his mother's well-to-do lifestyle. She responds by attempting to take the boy from his father. And when an all night drinking-and-gambling binge results in Champ losing Dink's horse, the man reluctantly agrees.

Now Dink is heading off on a train with his mother to a new life and family while Champ wastes away alone. Will Dink stay with his mother? And will the Champ jump at one last chance to climb into the ring?

The Champ is a great film and, while Wallace Beery may have won the awards, the film's success rests primarily on the shoulders of Jackie Cooper.

In The Champ, Cooper plays Dink, who (thanks to his father's alcohol and gambling issues), is forced to be the adult in his apartment. He dresses his father and works to get the ex-boxer to his appointments.

The real trick in Cooper's performance is not simply in playing the character as more mature. He still remains a kid, just with an additional burden. We see in Cooper's eyes some resentment of his father's behavior, but also acceptance and unconditional love.

That becomes critical later when Dink has an opportunity to escape his father for a better life and refuses. The turn of events could feel like an overwritten plot machination, but Cooper gives us such a fully realized character, it makes total sense why he'd race back to his no-good dad.

Speaking of dad, Beery is brilliantly understated in the title role. Again, it's a character that could go off the rails, but even when Andy loses Dink's beloved horse to cover gambling debts, you believe he wants to do right by his son. It's a revelatory turn from an actor who is primarily known for playing the heavy.

As for King Vidor's direction, it elevates the film above its relatively simple premise. Each shot is carefully framed and whenever we are with Dink, we are seeing the world from the level of a child, barely seeing anything above the torsos of the adults that surround him.

The Champ is wonderful filmmaking, centered around two fantastic lead performances by Cooper and Beery. It's filled with sports film cliches, but it serves as both a prototype of those tropes and an exercise in elevating them above even most movies today.

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

NOTE: Beery received the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Champ.

NOTE: Original version of this article referred to Jackie Cooper as starring in The Kid because I am an idiot. This is the corrected version. Thanks to reader policomic for the correction.

Posted in 1931, jackie cooper, king vidor, the champ, wallace beery | No comments

Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Rewatching Frankenstein (1931)

Posted on 03:00 by Unknown

Directed by James Whale

Starring Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff

Produced by Universal Pictures

A brilliant scientist allows his intelligence and ego to drive him to the brink of sanity as he plays god and creates a new living being from stitched together dead bodies. His creation at first seems innocent and childlike, but lashes out when threatened by fire. Can the scientist bring himself to destroy his creation?

I honestly hesitated to bother with even a capsule recap of this one. The story of the monster and his creator is such a cultural touchstone that most people do not even realize the significant deviations this takes from the book. When you say "Frankenstein," nine out of ten people are going to picture this depiction.

Frankenstein as directed by James Whale is all about its visuals. Boris Karloff's look for the creature has been copied many times in many films, but revisiting the original, you realize what a poor facsimile these other versions really are. Sure, there are the flat head and the neck bolts, but Karloff's eyes are the key to the character here. Those droopy eyelids seem unthinking and dull, but then the windows open and the sunlight fills his face and those eyes glimmer with just a small amount of life. He brings a restrained humanity to the creature, which makes what happens to him all the more tragic.

No sooner do we see the monster's ecstasy from simply being bathed in sunlight, then we see his absolute terror when confronted with the flame of a torch. The doctor mistakes his creation's fear as an attack and confines him in a basement dungeon. Frankenstein's assistant Fritz further antagonizes the monster with his torch and eventually is killed by the enraged creature.

As much as I love the tragedy of these early scenes, I feel like the movie sprints a little too much after this point. It has some memorable moments, but they feel disjointed. Frankenstein just leaves the creature so he can go off and get married. The monster kills again and escapes. It encounters a little girl, plays by the side of a river with her and then playfully tosses her in, not understanding she'll drown. Then the monster is in Frankenstein's bride's bedroom.

Geography and pace are sacrificed as the film sets up the pieces for the endgame. Fortunately, Whale's distinctive visual style remains and Karloff embody the character in ways that never stoop to the cliche the creature has become in pop culture.

I want Frankenstein to be better. There are script problems. There are acting problems. However, Karloff and the direction remain enough to consider this a classic. A flawed classic, but a classic nonetheless.

**** out of *****

NOTE: This is the second version of the Frankenstein tale I've reviewed. Check out my thoughts on the 1910 version (which was also my first ever review on the site).

Posted in 1931, boris karloff, frankenstein, james whale | No comments

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Cimarron (1931)

Posted on 03:00 by Unknown

Directed by Wesley Ruggles (uncredited)
Starring Richard Dix, Irene Dunne and Estelle Taylor
Produced by RKO Radio Pictures

It's the Old West, a time of Western expansion, and the great Oklahoma land rush is moments from beginning. Wagons and horses are lined up at the border, just waiting for the starter's gun to send them hurtling into the virgin territory to stake their claim.

Among the hopeful horseman is Yancey Cravat. He has scoped out the perfect plot of land upon which to raise a family with his wife Sabra. He just has to get there before anyone else.

Unfortunately, A woman named Dixie Lee takes advantage of Yancey's honor and tricks him into giving up the plot. Undeterred, Yancey returns to Wichita, scoops up Sabra and heads to Osage to start up a newspaper.

In the ensuing years, Osage and the Cravat clan grow up together. The newspaper takes off, Yancey's a respected voice in the town and he and Sabra are blessed with some children. Yancey remains a pioneer by nature however and soon becomes restless in the expanding borough.

Can Yancey quiet his nomadic nature? And how will Sabra deal with Yancey if he threatens to leave?

Cimarron is a movie divided against itself.

On the one hand, it wants to be about a strong, pioneering woman who struggles to establish a newspaper business on the Western frontier. Sabra has to raise a family, keep the home together and increase the paper's circulation while her nomadic husband is constantly away on one of his impulsive adventures. Her strength is finally rewarded when she is elected to Congress despite her husband's absence.

However, the filmmakers are so in live with the husband Yancey and his exploits, they cannot stand taking the camera off of him long enough to give Sabra's story time to breathe.

Emblematic of this problem is the way Yancey's decision to go and get a piece of the Cherokee Strip land rush plays out. After fighting to get his foothold in the Oklahoma Rush, he's leaving his wife and kids for no better reason than wanderlust.

And during the five years he is gone, Sabra presumably does pretty well for herself. I say "presumably" because Cimarron has no interest in showing us how Sabra adapts to having an absentee husband and father. Instead, we fast forward five years to see Yancey's triumphant return to town.

This would be fine if we were meant to get a better understanding of Sabra through Yancey's eyes, but that is not what is going on here. This is 100 percent Yancey's story until the last 15 minutes when the film suddenly decides it is really about Sabra. It's a whiplashing plot mechanism that cannot hope to work.

In the course of carrying out this flawed structure, Cimarron does boast some impressive set-pieces. The opening Oklahoma land rush captures a moment in history I was largely unfamiliar with and carries it out to spectacular effect. There are thousands waiting for that starters gun so they can drive, ride or even run into the territory to make their claim. And once the gun sounds? Bedlam. Chaos. Wagons and riders race across the prairie. Wagon wheels fly. Horses break loose. It feels insane and dangerous.

I also appreciated the shootout that marks the mid-point of the film. The Kid, an old associate of Yancey's, rides into town with his gang, guns blazing. Yancey takes it upon himself to save the town and takes out each of the outlaws one by one.

The action is shot with a great sense of space and geography. We know where everyone is throughout the scene which only ups the tension as it reaches its endgame.

No discussion of Cimarron would be complete without some discussion of its portrayal of race, especially as embodied by the black serving boy Isaiah and the stereotypically Jewish Sol.

Yes, these portrayals are offensive by today's standards. However, Cimarron is not making an argument for the superiority of a race (as The Birth of a Nation despicably tried to). Instead, it thinks it is being progressive (which it may have been in its own time).

That leads to some bizarre juxtapositions as we lurch from a scene of Yancey arguing for citizenship for Indians to a moment with an actress playing an Indian looking and speaking like the most stereotypical version of such a character you can imagine. Or giving Isaiah a key, prominent role in Yancey's life, but having the boy exclaim how excited he is that their town sells watermelons. It's uncomfortable and ugly.

Richard Dix plays Yancey and there is no secret as to why he is cast; the man has one of the richest baritone voices you are likely to hear, which would be attractive to studios still figuring out the talkies. His acting? Well, he has a wonderful voice, right?

Irene Dunne's role is pretty thankless for the first three quarters of the film, but she shines during the final stanza. The character actors are hit or miss.

Cimarron has some basic flaws in its structure that lead to mixed themes and messages, but it gets points for some ambitious moments. I just wish the film's self-congratulatory supposed advancement of minorities in film didn't end up so stereotypical and racist.

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

NOTE: Cimarron won the 1931 Best Picture Oscar.

Posted in 1931, cimarron, oscar winner | No comments

mmp

Monday, 22 April 2013

Lonely Wives (1931)

Friday, 19 April 2013

Monkey Business (1931)

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Welcome to the LAMMY-nominated 100 Years of Movies

Platinum Blonde (1931)

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

The Champ (1931)

Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Rewatching Frankenstein (1931)

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Cimarron (1931)

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