NFR Project: 'The Pearl' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Pearl”

Dir: Emilio Fernandez

Scr: John Steinbeck, Emilio Fernandez, Jack Wagner

Pho: Gabriel Figueroa

Ed: Gloria Schoemann

Premiere: Feb. 17, 1948 (U.S.) / Sept. 12, 1947 (Mexico)

77 min.

There are two great film figures at work here that you’ve probably not heard of.

Emilio Fernandez was one of the premier directors, screenwriters, and actors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (1936-1956). He made more than 100 films; he garnered international acclaim. But because Mexican culture didn’t by and large make it north of the border, he remains an unknown quantity to American eyes. The same is true for cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, who was similarly honored for his efforts, and who worked on more than 200 films.

The two of them combine forces to film an epic fable or parable about the dangers of greed, the oppression of colonialism, and basic questions of good and evil, penned by that master John Steinbeck. The simplicity of the story is like that of a fairy tale; but the story is dotted with blood.

A pearl fisherman, Kino (Pedro Armendariz, best known in America for his John Ford roles), finds an enormous pearl, which he shows his wife Juana (Mari Elena Marquez). The village celebrates the find. The doctor who previously refused to treat his infant son now hurries to their bedside, eager to exchange his expertise for the pearl.

The dealers in town agree to keep their estimation of the pearl’s value low. Kino refuses to sell to them, and he and his family seek to escape the village, to make it to the capital to sell the pearl. He kills an assailant. They try to flee by water, but fail. They begin an arduous overland journey, pursued by two native trackers and a man with a gun.

The men trap them, and Kino slithers down the mountainside, knife in hand. He ambushes the man with the gun and kills him. However, the man gets a shot off. It kills the baby.

Kino and Juana return to their village, hand in hand. They go up a high cliff looking over the sea – and cast the pearl into it.

A simple story, but resonant. Wealth is evil. The pearl is a curse, revealing the worst in every man. It nearly destroys those who possess it. And the world of men is not fair, nor even-handed. It is on one level another Steinbeck indictment of man’s behavior.

The images in the film progress from one beautiful composition to another. Figueroa is at his best when he’s close in to actor’s faces, lovingly recording their responses to the tragedy around them. Armendariz is masterful as Kino.

The film was made twice; once in English and once in Spanish. I could not find the English version, but I broke into my high-school Spanish to follow a screening along as best I could. Fortunately, Fernandez tells the story purely through visuals – it is possible to understand the story without understanding the language. This grasp of materials in service of telling the story is exemplary.

No matter what language you see it in, the strong visuals propel the fable along. It’s a gateway to the underappreciated Golden Age of Mexican cinema, which deserves wider viewing.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Red River.

NFR Project: 'The Naked City' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Naked City”

Dir: Jules Dassin

Scr: Albert Maltz, Malvin Wald

Pho: William H. Daniels

Ed: Paul Weatherwax

Premiere: March 4, 1948

96 min.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city. This was one of them.”

So intones the voice of Mark Hellinger, New York journalist and this film’s producer, who died weeks before this film opened. Hellinger’s voice is the first you hear in the preamble to this story of a crime and its solution, as a sometimes-sardonic offscreen chronicler of New York City’s bigness and complex functions, faithfully telling a police procedural story as a documentary-style “location” film, before anyone else and most successfully.

For a lot of this was shot on New York streets, starting a trend that would accelerate as the years passed. The movie is a classic policier – the story of a given case from the perspective of law enforcement, from beginning to end. Here, a murder sporting two suspects branches off into all manner of scenes with a cross-section of New York’s vibrant culture.

The leader of the investigation is Dt. Lt. Muldoon, played by Barry Fitzgerald. You finally get a good look at Fitzgerald as a legit character actor, and not as his typical comic Irish stereotype. He wisely prods witnesses, focuses his team’s attention, and delegates the legwork to an eager young Detective, Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor).

The trouble comes down to a shifty suspect (Howard Duff, in a truly villainous role) and his relation to several women. There is jewel theft, and a wrester that plays the harmonica (Ted de Corsia, sweaty and desperate). Somehow Muldoon and Company take down the bad guys, the last of which is vanquished at the summit of the Williamsburg Bridge (William H. Daniels won Best Cinematography at the Oscars that year for it).

One of its more trivia-minded aspects is the onslaught of New York acting talent that surfaced in this film. If you pluck out in your memory the now-familiar faces of character actors Kathleen Freeman, James Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff, John Randolph, Paul Ford, John Marley, and/or Arthur O’Connell, you would be seeing for the first time in years a “real” East Coast film.

It is by today’s standards sedate, but it was revolutionary for its time. It was wildly successful. You did not have to go to Hollywood to make a movie, once again. People liked seeing “the real thing,” and naturalism became the name of the game in film, at least in black-and-white. (Note: there was a string of “Technicolor noirs” concurrently, some of which were such sterling examples as Vertigo, House of Bamboo, and Leave Her to Heaven.) There was a big pool of cheap talent in New York. In future, views of the city would increase appreciably on nation-wide screens.

The director, Jules Dassin, was not a Frenchman, but a kid from Harlem. He knew his way around the city. He had just made the hit Brute Force; after Naked City, he would make, in a row, Thieves’ Highway, Night and the City, and Rififi. A true noir master. Saying that, it is interesting how Dassin presents the story in pseudo-documentary style, with Hellinger’s narrative voice continuing, moving the story along.

Dassin doesn’t exercise any style. His directing is strictly functional. They want it to look like the real thing? We get the drudgery of daily police work, see its odd chances at grasping the truth, trace the track-down of a criminal on an iconic NYC bridge. It is proud of its pedestrianism. It was all done surreptitiously; no one gave their permission to use their image to the filmmakers. They just went out into the streets and got it.

The blacklist got Dassin shortly after. He got off Thieves’ Highway, but he had to scamper to England to make Night and the City, away from the bad press that labeled him as a Communist. He then stuck to working in Europe, still producing popular and visually adroit films such as Rififi, Never on Sunday and Topkapi.

The Naked City epitomizes the tough urban thriller. Shot on location willy-nilly, it’s gritty and tough, delivers a New York sensibility that would soon revitalize the industry. It’s NYC neorealism.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Pearl.

NFR Project: 'Louisiana Story' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Louisiana Story”

Dir: Robert J. Flaherty

Scr: Robert J. Flaherty, Frances H. Flaherty

Pho: Richard Leacock

Ed: Helen van Dongen

Premiere: Sept. 28, 1948

78 min.

A slightly interesting artifact. This is a promotional film, commissioned by the Standard Oil Company. They wanted to show rural audiences that letting them drill for oil on their property was a lovely, interesting way to make them some money.

They hired the great documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, Moana, Man of Aran) to direct it. He and his wife wrote the scenario. In it, a young boy and his parents live in a shack out in the Louisiana swamp. The oil company comes through and gets the old man to sign a contract. Soon an oil rig is towed to the portion of the river nearest their home.

The boy watches the goings-on at the rig with curiosity, slightly intimidated by the huge pieces of machinery and the loud clankings of its operation. However, the drillers are nice guys, and soon make the boy feel at home.

The progress of the well is deterred briefly by a blowout (the pressurized emission of a pocket of gas and salt water). However, things soon get back on track and finally, they strike oil.

Meanwhile, the boy has some adventures in the swamp. He loses his pet racoon to an alligator, then captures and kills and skins the gator in consequence. The cinematography by Richard Leacock is beautiful; the boy grows up in an enchanted world.

The movie ends when the family gets paid off. Mother gets a new cooking pot; the boy gets a new gun!

The film also contains an exquisite score by Virgil Thomson, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Composition.

The fable-like falsity of the narrative sells the viewpoint of the entity commissioning the product. Drilling is good, the end. The rest is just wondow-dressing. It is quite a comedown for Flaherty, who get points for crafting a visually interesting film – but turns over control of its meaning to its owners. It is a work-for-hire.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Naked City.