Monte Carlo (1930)

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Starring Jeanette MacDonald, Jack Buchanan and Claud Allister

Produced by Paramount Pictures

It's a big day for Prince Otto Von Liebenheim. He is prepared to marry the beautiful Countess Helene Mara. The only problem is that is bride has left him at the altar. Again. For the third time. Undeterred, the prince vows to find and wed the countess.

Meanwhile, Helene has boarded a train with her servant Bertha. She's in such a hurry she didn't even bother to check where the train is going. She reviews the train's itinerary and settles on Monte Carlo as a destination. Once there, she can take her relatively modest amount of money, gamble a bit and earn enough to live in the manner to which she is accustomed.

And it almost works. After betting on number 16 and winning four times in a row at the roulette table, she loses it all on her fifth try. While she's at the tables, frittering away her last pennies, Count Rudolph takes notice of the beautiful countess and resolves to win her heart.

After being rebuffed by the bride-on-the-run, Count Rudolph assumes the guise of a hairdresser and begins caring for the woman he loves. She however thinks he is a commoner and no matter how strong her attraction, she decides she must keep away.

What will happen to the countess once the hotel learns she is penniless? Will "Rudy" reveal his secret? And who will Helene choose when the prince arrives to take her back?

 

As with many of the early sound movies, Monte Carlo is something of a mixed bag. It certainly has its issues (a dud of a leading man and a series of unmemorable songs), but a light tone and Jeanette MacDonald's performance ultimately are enough to carry the film. The movie grabs you from the beginning with a comically over-the-top turn by Claud Allister as Helene's fiancé. When he swears to the crowd he will find and return with his fugitive bride-to-be, the music shows the sly incredulity of the wedding guests that this "simp" of a prince can actually pull it off. 

Then we get to spend some time with MacDonald as Helene and she is the perfect combination of beauty, naivete and flirtatiousness. She belts out "Beyond the Blue Horizon" on her train ride to Monte Carlo in a nicely staged scene that combines MacDonald's voice, the sounds of the train and even a chorus of farmhands working in the fields to provide one of the film's high points.

Once Jack Buchanan's Count Rudolph is introduced however, the film just slows to a crawl. Any charisma and charm he has seems to come only in comparison to the amusingly annoying prince. You just don't see what Helene would with Rudy.

That said, the film takes full advantage of its pre-Code status to fill Helene and Rudy's interactions with all manner of double entendres. After his disastrous tryout, Rudy ingratiates himself with the countess by giving her a scalp massage. And the moans of ecstasy MacDonald lets out make her eavesdropping servant blush. She demands that Rudy "service" her and he provides a knowing smile in response. There's a lot of fun to be had in the dialogue.

I did love the ending of this. The film cleverly climaxes with Helene at a play with the Prince watching a story that closely parallels their own. It serves as a fun sort of confession and apology for Rudolph so that the love birds can be together.

On the whole, Monte Carlo is entertaining if not particularly memorable. If you're looking for a fun, pre-Code musical, you could do worse.

*** out of *****

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The Film Pasture: Ep. 2 - To Sundance We Will Go

Episode 2 of The Film Pasture, the podcast I host for the Large Association of Movie Blogs, is now available.

In this episode, I talk with Shala Thomas of Life Between Films about her experiences at the Sundance Film Festival.  We cover everything...well, as much as you can cover in about 20 minutes: planning for the fest, where to go, and (of course) which films rose above the pack.

The Film Pasture is available for download in iTunes.  Please check us out!

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Abraham Lincoln (1930)

Directed by D.W. Griffith

Starring Walter Huston, Una Merkel and William L. Thorne 

Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions

In a small, nondescript log cabin in Kentucky, a small child is born. We see him grow up and fall in love only to lose her to disease in her 20s. He courts an ambitious woman and runs unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

But with the country teetering on the brink of a civil war, his party turns to him to be its Presidential candidate. Can he win the White House? Will he lead his country through its most difficult hours? Does he fight vampires? And should he give up going to the theater?

Abraham Lincoln follows the life of one of our most famous Presidents from his log cabin birth to his assassination. It's well-acted and well-directed. So what's it missing?

Every major detail of his life. 

We see nothing of his Presidential election. No Gettysburg address. The Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln Douglas debates... all given only the most cursory of treatments. 

There are plenty of good biopics out there that play as a highlight reel of a person's life. Others focus on a less consequential event as a way of humanizing and illuminating a public persona. Griffith tries to do both here. He chooses to move throughout Lincoln's entire life over the course of 90 minutes, but focuses on the smaller moments in between the larger actions. It just never quite works. 

We meet an early love of young Abe's, but the next scene is at her deathbed. We don't spend enough time with her to care or even to feel the impact of her death on the rest of Abe's life. Similarly, Lincoln declares throughout that the Union must be preserved. Yet none of the smaller moments give the viewer any better understanding of why the future President believes this. 

Where the film actually takes off is in its second half when Lincoln has become President (in an election that happens entirely off-screen). We see his Cabinet, certain they will be able to steamroll an inexperienced politician, surprised by his resolve. There's the wonderful image of a vast bank of telegraph operators providing the President with his only sense of how the war proceeds through accounts shaded by the overconfidence of his commanders in the field. There's genuine tension in these scenes despite the fact that we know how it all turns out. 

The film's denouement is Lincoln's assassination at Ford's theater and Griffith cannot pull off the same feat. The action proceeds slowly, clearly with the intention of building up suspense, but it doesn't work. We know the assassin is successful. Making it worse, Griffith actually already showed us this very moment in history in The Birth of a Nation and did so far more effectively. 

To the extent anything in the film's first half works, it's due in large part to Walter Huston. As Lincoln, he's believable as brawler, as a young man in love, as a patriot, as a President. He has a carefree personality that turns grave and somber when faced with matters of state. He handles the frenetic movement of the script perfectly. 

The only other issue worth mentioning is the obviousness of some of the script. It's filled with a lot of winking "you'll never amount to anything" dialogue which of course is meant to give the audience (which has the benefit of 20/20 historical hindsight) a brief chuckle. However, after the fifth time you use that device, it starts to lose its charm.

Ultimately, Abraham Lincoln is hampered by its approach. The film flits from inconsequential moment to inconsequential moment, providing just enough information to intrigue without providing any illumination on the man behind the myth. The result is a solid lead performance, a lot of wasted narrative energy and ultimately more questions than answers for the audience. 

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

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Educational Films of 1930

It's time once again for everyone's favorite feature: educational films!

We are in the 1930s and we're learning about beavers (the animal, so stop snickering) and gliding.

Without further ado:

Beavers



No sound to this one which would normally mean it's pretty boring, but I found this strangely hypnotic to watch.  I definitely learned a bit (assuming our knowledge of beavers has not dramatically advanced in the last 100 years).  And the cute factor goes up exponentially when some young beavers are introduced 2/3 of the way in.

(Note: all double entendres above were entirely intentional).

Gliding



 

This looks awesome.

This film covers the sport of gliding.  After an early portion that covers a toy recreation of Charles Lindbergh's glider, the movie moves into the actual early gliders.  No cockpit.   Just you and the open air.

I've gotta think this was an amazing sport to try. And Boy Scouts used to do it.  How awesome would that have been?

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Introducing The Film Pasture...

People find their motivation in some weird ways.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I started 100 Years of Movies because I felt like I was missing out on some classic films and I needed a system to get me watching them. Chronology brought me order and the blog kept me honest (it's embarrassing to go a couple weeks without posting, something I do all too frequently).

As I've gotten to know more folks from the LAMB, I now realize there are a ton of great writers out there who put my hobby to shame.  I get to visit some, but not enough.  I want to get out and visit with more LAMBs.  And what better place to meet and discuss films with them but...

The Film Pasture.

With the blessing of shepherd Joel Burman, I am launching a new podcast called The Film Pasture.  Episode 1 just went live and features a discussion with the LAMB's founder about the origins of the site and with the current shepherd about what's going on today.

In the future, I want to have all manner of discussion with my fellow bloggers and podcasters.  There will be more news here and on the LAMB and at the LAMB Forums.

For now though, feel free to give a listen to my rookie effort:

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Soup to Nuts (1930)

Directed by Benjamin Stoloff
Starring Ted Healy, Charles Winninger, The Three Stooges
Produced by Fox Film Corporation

So here it is: The debut of the comedy trio we all know and love as The Three Stooges. Moe (billed here as Harry Howard), Shemp Howard and Larry Fine make their first appearance on the big screen. 

It turns out that even in the beginning they were really entertaining.  Their characters here are more subdued than we may be used to, but you can see the beginnings of the comic stylings of the team.

Of course, the problem in Soup to Nuts is they are relegated to the background for almost the entirety of the piece.

It's clear at the beginning here, the writers and producers are going for a Marx Brothers vibe more than anything.  The star of the piece for all intents and purposes is Ted Healy's character (creatively named "Ted"), who is basically an imitation of Groucho without the glasses or moustache.  He's followed around by a mute fireman (Fred Sanborn) who poorly fills the Harpo role.  The Stooges collectively are playing Chico (interestingly, with Shemp, not Moe, in the alpha dog role).

While you can see the beginnings of what will become the Three Stooges bread and butter, Healy and Sanborn are painful to watch.  Healy's every line delivery feels forced and over-written and Sanborn's eyebrows move as though they are aliens from another planet in the most distracting of ways.

None of this even touches on the film's "A" plot which follows costume shop owner Otto Schmidt who is more interested in inventing useless and overly complicated machines (the film was written by Rube Goldberg and features some of his designs).  The man's shop is taken over by a creditor, who dispatches his son Carlson to oversee the operation. 

Carlson immediately falls for Otto's daughter Louise and tries to win her heart.  She of course cannot love the man she sees as taking her dad's shop.

Ted works for Schmidt and loves hanging out at the local firehouse, populated by the Stooges and the mute fireman. 

In the end, Ted and Carlson concoct a way for the latter to win Louise's hand at the fireman's ball.  The plan goes awry and their is a very nicely-shot fire sequence featuring the inept Stooges trying to rescue Carlson and Louise.

I can't say Soup to Nuts is a good movie.  It's boring and tedious and inconsistent in its camerawork and sound design.  It is however worth it as a curiosity.  Every time Shemp, Moe and Larry come onto the screen, the film crackles and pops.

I just wish there was a bit more of them.

** out of *****

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The Blue Angel (1930)

Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Gerron
Produced by UFA

Professor Rath is an instructor at a small college in Germany. None of his students give him the respect he believes he deserves. After a particularly trying session, he notices one of his students trip on the way out of class. The boy drops a photo from a local cabaret, featuring the beautiful Lola.

Rath heads to the club that night to catch the boys in the act. While there, he meets Lola and is oblivious when one of his students stows the dancer's underwear in his coat.   

Rath is obsessed with Lola and welcomes the opportunity to return the panties to her the following night. After some talking, the professor ends up spending the night. 

His rendezvous makes him late for the next day's class and infuriates the principal who knows where Rath spent his evening. Rather than apologize, Rath professes his love for Lola and resigns his professorship to marry the dancer.

But the now-former-academic's honeymoon quickly comes to an end. He does not like Lola's profession and takes a job as a clown in her show to make a little extra cash. Meanwhile, Lola seems to have eyes for the show's new strongman. 

When Lola's traveling show heads back to Rath's hometown, the former esteemed professor is set up to be a laughingstock. How will Rath deal with this turn of events? And can he retain the love of Lola?

 

I struggle with The Blue Angel. 

On the one hand, it's a perfect little morality tale about a self-important, pseudo-intellectual who gets the comeuppance he so richly deserves. 

On the other, it doesn't give you anything to cheer for. His students are brats. The show's performers are bad guys. It's not entertaining and you don't learn anything you didn't already learn from countless hours spent interacting with other human beings. 

The big weapon the film has in its favor is of course the fantastic Emil Jannings in the lead role. He is perfect as a professor who believes he is untouchable until of course he becomes the husk of a man upon his fall. 

But Jannings is also the problem here. We've seen all of these notes before. He brings the same pride and authority to the doorman in The Last Laugh and the general in The Last Command. He also ends up in the same haunted shell by those films' climaxes. The difference of course is those other films are simply better than anything The Blue Angel has to offer. 

This is the film that brought Marlene Dietrich to prominence and I can safely say that she's good here. She plays Lola as both bored with her existence, but intrigued when the local professor takes an interest. 

There is one interesting thread that is never fully explored. By the film's end, Rath is forced to play a clown in Lola's show. The denizens of his hometown, whom he previously derided and sat in judgement if, get the final laugh. 

However, in earlier scenes, the show already had a silent, but melancholy clown who Rath seemingly took the place of. Given the film's ending, I wonder about that unnamed clown. How did he get there? Does Lola regularly consume men like Rath to ultimately play the fool before discarding them? Are simply seeing a moment in a cycle of destruction? 

The movie suggests this, but really doesn't spend much time on it. Ultimately, The Blue Angel is far more interested in showcasing Jannings. 

Is this a good movie? A well-made, well-acted movie? Absolutely. Can I recommend others sit through it? Well... 

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

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