Somehow it’s a little too dry and a little too chilly for fireworks in the Bay Area, but I’m going to wish you a happy Fourth of July and say it with fireworks anyway. From the original jukebox (movie) musical, here is Fred Astaire tapping out his tribute to tomorrow’s holiday:
This is one of my favorite Astaire solos. A little movie magic tricks the eye and the ear, but the moves are all his. I love how happy he looks when done. He’s probably imagining how the finished scene will look, and it is a stand-out in a film full of production numbers.
The Nitrate Film Interest Group has posted new stills from another unidentified film in its vaults. Can you help them solve the mystery? Here are your first clues. The film is a silent, and it features a lawyer, who may be named Dorsey. Here’s a still:
If you would like to see more stills from this mystery film, you’ll find a set here.
Perhaps because I’ve worked as a bookseller, I’ve always felt a special affinity for Dorothy Malone‘s bookstore proprietress in The Big Sleep. In the film private detective Philip Marlowe investigates an increasingly confusing case that centers around a dysfunctional family. Clues keep leading him back to one blond sister or the other. The younger has gotten herself mixed up with an organized crime racket and murder, while the older treats Marlowe like yesterday’s trash and may have a gambling problem. While following up a lead, Marlowe stumbles into Acme Book Shop, and we meet Malone.
Dorothy’s role is small, but it’s a plum one. Despite being Plain Janed via glasses and pulled back brown hair, she looks gorgeous. Her thin-framed glasses make her look erudite, and they don’t hide a bit of that beautiful babyface. While her dress is conservative in neckline, sleeve length, and hemline, it’s mainly black, and as the widow’s color it hints at sexual knowledge. Dorothy’s dress’s overlay brings a modern, sharp, and narrow-waisted silhouette to the ensemble. It’s work wear, but executed in a femininely fashion-forward way. She’s the hipster book clerk predecessor to Funny Face and others. She’s the only female to interact with Marlowe as an equal in this film.
She not only passes Marlowe’s book test, but she gives him enough information that he can move on with his case. He tells her she should have been a cop due to her memory and descriptive ability. It’s always in that moment, that I wish the film takes a different turn. Let Bogart have Bacall in real life, but let him have Malone in this reel life. Their characters could have joined forces and become an alternate detective team to Nick and Nora. She’d have her own set of smarts to compliment his, and they could have shown what another, straightforward, screen adult relationship could be.
Alas, this was not to be. This was an instance where the film sticks closer to the book and doesn’t go off in a new direction. Instead we have these few memorable scenes of banter ladened with chemistry:
For those that like to read the subtext, then there’s an interlude that implies much that the Hays Code was against.
In the above scenes time has passed. People have tidied themselves, and the bookshop has re-opened. Marlowe goes back into the rain and on the hunt, but not before our bookseller tempts him to return and buy a book. She wants to see him again. Unfortunately for her and for us, he leaves with a so long and a pat on the arm. He’s not coming back. With that he leaves her and me wondering what if?
John H. Auer‘s The City That Never Sleeps is an odd hodgepodge of a film. It crosses noir with docudrama with the guardian angel film. Its villains, Hayes Stewart, Lydia Biddel, and Penrod Biddel, are far more compelling than the lead Johnny Kelly. He’s a cop dissatisfied with his life. His hardworking wife Kathy Kelly fears he’s distant due to her higher earning potential, and that may be, but there’s a burlesque dancer Sally “Angel Face” Connors who’s stolen his attention with her shimmies, and she’s tired of sharing him. Johnny hatches a mad plan to pull one shady deal and bring in enough tainted money to run away with his honey. One side character gets drawn into all their stories, and he’s the mechanical man. He’s a great example of how a city can tear down a man, make him lose his humanity, yet offer redemption.
There’s a lot of frustration in this film. Everyone wants more than “what they got.” Sally seems like a harlot for stealing another woman’s man, but she’s not satisfied with her life, and she knows her situation isn’t right. She wants to get out of the club and be a decent girl. She once had dreams. She went to the big city to become a ballerina. She ended up a stripper. Johnny, representing law and order, must be a break from all the jerks that ogle and hassle her, but her time with him and whatever respite it offers are brief. He has to go home at some point to Kathy. She couldn’t get the career she wanted, and she doesn’t even own her own man, and she needs something to change.
Johnny doesn’t seem to realize that no good comes to men that romance women named Angel Face, and he can’t keep away from her, so Sally finally issues her ultimatum. He has to choose between her or Kathy. Johnny’s dissatisfied enough with his life to hatch his crazy scheme. He’s second generation cop, and he’s watched his father work hard for little payoff. Johnny’s wife works, and she likes it, but Johnny seems a traditionalist. He fantasizes about running off with his doll and being the one to save them from the city. Life elsewhere will be better despite how it’s earned or started.
Gregg Warren pines for Sally. He’s a failed actor turned mechanical man. He performs nightly and repeatedly in the club’s front window. Instead of portraying great or funny characters, he’s reduced to imitating an animated mannequin. The less human he seems the more successful he is at his job. He wants more than that. He dreams of stepping out of his glass coffin and onto the stage with Sally. He’ll save her from bumping and grinding by putting her in his comedy act, and she’ll save him. He doesn’t seem to have enough confidence or desire to do it solo, so he’ll hitch his star to Sally to get the gig. While she provides the pulchritude and presence, he’ll provide the brains behind the routine. Sally repeatedly turns him down. She prefers Johnny.
Warren doesn’t realize it, but a third triangle will affect him. Penrod Biddel is a corrupt lawyer, and he’s getting antsy about his number two, Hayes Stewart. Penrod thinks Hayes is getting too big for his britches, so he wants him out of town. Penrod hires Johnny to take care of his problem. Hayes can cool his heels in jail in another state where there’s a warrant out for his arrest. Penrod doesn’t realize his wife Lydia’s been romanced and won by Hayes. Mirroring Johnny and Sally, the two of them are planning their own new life also funded by Penrod’s money. Then their plans go awry.
Gregg is completely oblivious to their drama until he gets to view the second act. He witnesses a murder from his window box. All he can do is be as robotic as possible to save his own life. He needs to keep the murderer thinking that Gregg’s not a real man. The aspect of his job that has dehumanized him the most is what saves his life temporarily. He keeps performing until he can take a break. Meanwhile the murderer isn’t one hundred percent convinced that a dummy was in the window, and he’s going to hang around until he finds out.
The murderer causes more trouble in the club, and this act hits close to home for Johnny. He’s angry, and he needs to catch the criminal now. Gregg isn’t willing to help until Sally explains what has happened. Then Gregg, who’s been the chump of the film until now, commits his act of heroism. He will resume his performance in the window and become live bait for the killer. Gregg needs to commit the best performance of his life in order to keep his own.
Sally finally realizes that Gregg is a good man, and her feelings for him surface. She freaks out about Gregg risking his life. She begs him to stop, to get out of the window, and to save himself. She offers to join his act. Gregg wavers between exhaustion and exhilaration. Sally cares for him! He’s overwhelmed, and he breaks character in one small, but important way. He lets tears fall down his face. His tears are noticed by a couple, and when they comment on them, the murderer overhears. He has to get rid of this witness.
Any holiday can bring out the worst in people, but Christmas Holiday really isn’t about the supposedly joyous season. It’s a noir, so how can it be? A soldier’s Christmas leave provides the frame for the story. He”s just been jilted by his sweetheart, and he’s angry, so angry that he has to call upon her and her new husband across the country despite his friend’s warnings to stay away and cool down. Winter weather isn’t very kind to this hothead or his plans and strands him in New Orleans. He’s an easy target for a newspaper reporter who makes extra money leading men astray to the local brothel. There he meets a dark lady. First she fascinates him, and then she serves as his warning sign. She shows him what happens to those who cling to failed love affairs when they should have let go long ago.
Deanna Durbin can’t escape her singing career in this film. She plays Jackie Lamont the mysterious chanteuse-and-maybe-more of the brothel. In a gown slit to there, she looks grown-up, moody, and hard, yet our hero Lieutenant Charlie Mason (Dean Harens) is still drawn to her. Other men want to meet her, but they’re handed over to other girls working the club. Maybe she’s part of a bait-and-switch ploy, or maybe only the big spenders get her, or maybe what turns out to be another kindly screen madame (Gladys George as Valerie de Merode) protects Jackie. Mason must impress her as being different because she introduces him to Jackie, who’s none too thrilled.
After some dancing and barely chatting, Jackie must decide that Charlie is okay, too. He doesn’t know who she is. He’s some troubled guy on leave. That may make her trust him. She makes him attend midnight mass with her. During the service in the cathedral, she makes the second worst move of any pseudo-date. She breaks down bawling. Charlie does not flee like most strangers would from such a hot mess. He stays and makes sure that she’s alright as someone like her can be. Since he’s gained her trust, she tells him her real name, Abigail Martin. He has no idea who she is, so she tells him her story.
Her husband Robert Manette (Gene Kelly) is infamous, but she takes Mason and us back to when she first met him. They chance to meet at a musical performance. Nick Hornby was right when he wrote of how anyone who’s passionate about music has known what it is to be lonely. They needed that time alone to develop their bond with and their taste for music. Abigail is a single girl attending a concert by herself. Robert seems to be there half for the music and half for the macking. He’s got a city guy feel that contrasts with her more suburban one. He wears down her defenses with his manic charm, and they become a couple. She has no idea how troubled he is.
His mother Mrs. Manette (Gale Sondergaard) does, but she never directly tells Martin. She’s so naïve that she misses all the hints, like being told she’ll be good for him, that they will take care of him together. She never onces wonders why these members of a once illustrious family live isolated in their grand old house. Manette is a little man, a momma’s boy who makes messes that his mother cleans up, and Abigail becomes the third wheel to that couple. Robert murders a bookie and finally gets himself into trouble that his mother can’t cover up, and she blames herself and Abigail for failing him.
Formerly lonely Abigail becomes lonely again. With too much time on her hands, she obsesses over her romance and pines for her husband. She becomes a celebrity by her association with him, yet she’s an outcast because she cannot stop loving him. His mother’s words haunt her, and she believes them. She thinks she failed her husband, and she punishes herself by falling lower in society and taking her singing job. It’s as if the contagion of his mother’s pathology has been passed on to her. As the new Mrs. Manette she’s taken over the old sick role.
Charlie has met someone worse off than himself, and his thoughts of Abigail that prevent him from leaving. Momentarily it seems that a romance might brew between the two–if she can get over her husband, but he can’t stay in jail. He’ll never get out for good behavior, so he breaks out, and he’s very mad that his wife has been spending time with another, and he’s not believing they’re platonic friends.
I’ve shared a lot of the plot, so I don’t want to spoil the film’s conclusion, but I do not get the people who think it has a hopeful ending. Look at Dean Harens’s expression at the end. He shows that Charlie is horrified. Sometimes people cannot overcome their obsessions. Sometimes their obsessions do break them. Love transforms, but not everyone is made better by that transformation, especially in the noir world, and I fear Abigail is too far gone.
This weekend a friend and I are off to the picture show! We’re attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s 6th Annual Winter Event. I’ve been to all of their summer festivals save one since moving to California, but this will be my first time going to one of their winter events, and this will be my friend’s first time attending as a published author. She’ll be signing copies of her book in between screenings.
These three shorts from Chaplin’s brilliant stint at the Mutual Film Corporation are a glimpse into a master perfecting his craft. Some of the most hilarious moments on film by a genius whose physical wit and grace spoke louder than words. Co-presented by Niles Essanay Film Museum.
Greed and sex drive Marcel L’Herbier’s adaptation of Emile Zola’s celebrated novel about financial speculation. The excess of the story is mirrored in the filmmaking—opulent sets, breathtaking camerawork, and a rhythm that conveys glamour and modernity. Magnificently restored, this film is a true revelation! Accompanied by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Titles in French with live reading of English translation by Stephen Salmons. Generous support provided by the French Consulate of San Francisco.
This eternal romance set in bohemian Paris of the 1830s has been filmed many times, but King Vidor’s classic starring Lillian Gish as Mimi and John Gilbert as Rodolphe is the definitive version. New 35mm print courtesy of Stanford Theatre Foundation and UCLA Film and Television Archive. This is perfect Valentine Day fare for the romantic soul. Co-presented by San Francisco Opera.
We finished watching The Actors: Rare Films Of Clara Bow Volume 3 last night. Kid Boots was a cute Eddie Cantor vehicle. Clara Bow was Cantor’s character’s love interest. They made for a pairing. They actually had chemistry. She brought a breezy, natural quality to a simple role that would have been forgettable except for her. Cantor was funny with the faces and some mild slapstick, but the talkies unfettered his voice, and the marriage of his sound with his image showed how his star power vaulted him out of vaudeville. I never mind hearing any of his jokes that were hoary years before he said them. Maybe Boardwalk Empire will inspire an Eddie Cantor revival.
His silent is a stronger picture than The Saturday Night Kid talkie on the same disc, which we watched the other night. The latter is a curiosity for containing Bow’s speaking voice and featuring three actresses at different stages of their careers–sweet Bow looking a little matronly-but-hot near the end of hers, Jean Arthur whose career wouldn’t pick up speed until the following decade when she hit her mid-to-late thirties, and soon to be a hit Jean Harlow in a bit role in a couple of scenes, including a rooftop party scene where she gets an edit that assures she does not upstage the leading ladies. The film is another adaptation of the play Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em. The first featured Louise Brooks. The second is directed by her ex.
An extra stuck on the disc got to me. There’s an excerpt from Paramount on Parade. Clara Bow sings I’m True to the Navy Now. She looks and sounds great, so the snippet teases of what might have been if Paramount and life had treated her better. She does look up at times, but she is making flirtatious eye gestures, so she might not be showing microphone fear, and her choreography appears to be designed to diminish blocking worries. Whenever she sings, she stays in one spot and sways and undulates her arms. When she marches or fully dances, her naval chorus takes over the vocals. When the seamen lift her up at the end, I got teary seeing the screen queen looking happy and getting feted as she should have. She has such an innocence onscreen, and that makes me both sad and mad that these scenes may read differently to snarky modern audiences familiar with the false smear against her.
Some kind soul has uploaded a VHS transfer copy of her performance to YouTube. You’ll find it below.
If you are a film noir fan or plain movie buff, then you are in for a treat. Such a unique American genre will inspire equally unique reflections and reactions. You might even be inspired to check out some new-to-you films or revisit old favorites, and if you’re already inspired to contribute fiscally to the blogathon, here is the official donation link.
When I saw it, I thought about how so many times the movies do not get dance right. A film like The Red Shoes gets lauded because it works as a film and as a collaboration between media. Its filmmakers understood they were incorporating another art form, and they offered moviegoers and dance aficionados another way to view dance. The fantasy of film blended with the fantasy of dance, and where they met offered a new (sur)reality, and Moira Shearer‘s movements did not have to be hidden outside of the box of the screen because she could dance. Subject, casting, and forms were melded to create a masterpiece that inspires little girls to try ballet to this day. The cautionary tale they witness only echoes for the adults in the audience. Little girls see beauty and success on screen.
When I saw it, I was impressed by how Wim Wenders got it right. As a fan of choreographer Pina Bausch, he got to work with another artist that impressed him, and she got him thinking about new ways to show an older form. He frees her pieces from a stage or one setting and puts them places both simple and minimal (like their original stagings?) or in the midst of a bustling city or in the great outdoors. He takes advantage of the camera as a framing device to draw our eye to certain pieces of the performance or setting, but his camera isn’t static, and he pulls back to open up the scenes more and lets us see the full bodies of real dancers. In her choreography, she expresses different states of human emotion and the human condition. He gives her work a grander physical scale by blowing up her dancers and pieces to larger than life-size and by presenting everything in 3D. We may not be able to get to a city or country where we can watch a Bausch piece live, but Wenders’s format choice gets us closer to the experience of live theatre by freeing the dancers from his screen.
This year’s beneficiary is the Film Noir Foundation. Headed by Eddie Muller, the foundation promotes the “cultural, historical, and artistic significance of film noir as an original American cinematic movement.” They organize screenings and festivals like Noir City, and they fund film restoration and preservation.
I’m excited to help a local organization restore a film, which probably will screen at the Castro Theatre when done. The blogathon’s organizers (Ferdy on Films and The Self-Styled Siren) have announced which film everyone’s efforts will save. It’s The Sound of Fury (aka Try and Get Me). My husband and I watched this noir on a VHS tape via inter-library loan a couple of years ago, and the film has stuck with me despite seeing it in that diminished state.
For one thing, the plot is based on a true story that occurred not far from where we live. Back in the thirties, a department store heir was kidnapped and then gruesomely murdered. The real life incident outraged the public, and many formed an unruly mob outside the county jail where the suspects were being held. They wanted vigilante justice; they wanted to lynch the murderers.
I don’t want share further details in case you want to be surprised by the film’s ending, but I’ll tease you with this next tidbit. Director Cy Endfield filmed some of the most terrifying, fictionalized mob sequences I’ve ever seen. Those scenes will stay with you and stick in your mind.
So will Lloyd Bridges‘s portrayal of sociopath Jerry Slocum. If you’re a fan of Robert Mitchum‘s portrayals of Max Cady (Cape Fear) or Harry Powell (Night of the Hunter), then Bridges work in The Sound of Fury will impress you as well.
Though he’s better know for his TV work or his stints in the Airplane! series today, the Sound of Fury shows he had a great cinematic presence, especially when given material that worked his acting chops. Slocum is not a buy-the-numbers villain. Bridges shows what extreme narcissism can do to a man’s psyche, how it can detach him from others, how it can lead him to pleasure seeking and easy money, how it can lead him to mercilessly pursue that lifestyle, and how it even can lead to murder. Bridges pulls no punches, and he never once shows the weakness of rationalizing a killer or making him likable. Bridges is riveting as Slocum because Bridges shows how easy it is to be evil.
If I have not worked you up enough for the blogathon, then watch its commercial below. It’s full of sexy, seamy, smokey, slap-happy scenes of film noir.
