NFR Project: 'Tevya' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Tevya’

Dir: Maurice Schwartz

Scr: Maurice Schwartz, Marcy Klauber

Pho: Larry Williams

Ed: Sam Citron

Premiere: Dec. 21, 1939

93 min.

A labor of love that serves as a memorial to a now-vanished theatrical tradition.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Yiddish theater thrived in New York City. The masses of Jewish immigrants spoke, read, and wrote it, and became a kind of lingua franca for those who came from central and eastern Europe to the U.S. Many honored writers used it, including Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), whose tales of Jewish village life in Europe featured Tevya the dairyman, a Torah-quoting villager who took life with a sense of humor and irony.

Aleichem wrote numerous plays, the last of which was Tevye der milkhiker (Tevye the Dairyman) – performed posthumously in 1917. The play proved immensely popular, and made a star of its lead player, Maurice Scwartz. (This play later became the basis for the blockbuster, award-winning musical Fiddler on the Roof.) Schwartz was among the last in the tradition of great Yiddish players – Boris Thomashefsky, the Adlers, the Finkels, Molly Picon, and others.

Twenty years after first acting Tevye, Schwartz set out to get the performance of the play on film. He combined two Tevye stories and created a screenplay in Yiddish; raising $70,000 from friends and family, he directed himself as the comic milkman in this unique film record, shooting in New York and on Long Island.

The story takes place in Tevye’s village, where he has lived for 50 years. He is evidently one of the few Jews in the area, but he suffers no more than the usual amount of anti-semitic scorn as he plies his trade. One of his two daughters, Chava, has eyes for Fedya, a Christian. Going against her father, she marries him and converts, breaking her parents’ hearts and contributing to the death of her mother, Golde.

Without warning, the Russian rulers decree that Jews must be expelled from its cities and villages. Given only 24 hours to pack, Tevye sells everything he owns at a loss and prepares to leave. At the last minute, Chava returns to him, spurning her husband and declaring her undying commitment to Judaism. Taking her along, Tevye and family set out for the Holy Land.

The melodrama is intense. The heartbreak of not fitting in with the Christian world is palpable, and Schwartz expertly plays Tevye with wit and depth. The entire ensemble is top-notch (having performed the theatrical version of these stories numerous times). It is easy to see why audiences found this material so compelling. While not cinematically extraordinary, the film manages to convey the life of its characters with fidelity and grace.

By the time the film was released, Yiddish theater was pretty much dead. Assimilation meant that Jews in America now spoke English. Yiddish, despite the continuing efforts of writers such as the Nobel-winning Issac Bashevis Singer, became a dead language. Meanwhile, the ancient language of Hebrew was modernized and popularized, becoming the official language of the newly formed state of Israel.

It is unfortunate that this lively tongue has gone out of fashion. Tevya stands as a testament to its vibrancy and ability to convey thought and feeling.

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

NFR Project: 'Stagecoach' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Stagecoach’

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Dudley Nichols

Pho: Bert Glennon

Ed: Otho Lovering, Dorothy Spencer

Premiere: March 3, 1939

96 min.

How do you describe perfection?

There are very few “perfect” films out there, ones to which you would not remove or add a frame. Seven Samurai, Grand Illusion, Children of Paradise. Director John Ford has made more immaculately conceived and executed films than anyone I know. The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Searchers, Wagonmaster, The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, his cavalry trilogy. Stagecoach is one of these.

At the time this film was made, Westerns were an unreputable genre, strictly kid stuff. No one had attempted to make an “A” list Western since the notorious flop The Big Trail in 1930.

John Ford had started out his directing career in the silent era, making Westerns, and he had a taste for the mythic possibilities of frontier storytelling. (The closest he had come previously to making a Western epic was the excellent The Iron Horse, in 1924.) Now he focused all his genius on telling a solid story about the Old West.

In the movie, the stagecoach is set to go from Tonto (which means “stupid” in Spanish) to Lordsburg. The Apaches are on the warpath, and the coach’s passengers are warned of the dangers. However, some of them are in no position to stay. Dallas (Claire Trevor), a prostitute, is being forced out of town by the shrewish ladies of Tonto. They also have no use for the alcoholic Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), whom they consider a reprobate.

They are joined by a proper Eastern lady (Louise Platt) who is off to see her military husband, and who is very pregnant to boot. A Southern gambler, the gentlemanly Hatfield (John Carradine), gallantly adds himself to the roster in order to look after the lady. To the coach comes also Peacock (Donald Meek), a mild-mannered whiskey drummer, and the crooked banker Gatewood (Berton Churchill), who’s absconding with the bank’s funds.

Driving the coach is the scratchy-voiced comic relief character Buck (Andy Devine), who is accompanied by the marshal Curley (George Bancroft), who is on the lookout for the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), who busted out of jail and is looking for the three Plummer brothers, who killed his father and brother. The don’t get very far when they encounter Ringo, who is walking due to his horse coming up lame. Provisionally under arrest, he joins the others, squeezing into the coach.

Together they wheel across the desert, interacting with each other. The polite members of their society disdain Dallas, but Ringo falls for her and treats her with respect. The lady is forced to give birth at a way station, and Doc Boone gets sober in order to facilitate the delivery – redeeming himself somewhat. Ringo almost escapes, but stays when he sees Apache smoke signals.

Finally, the Indians attack. In along sequence, the stagecoach races frantically along a salt pan, with tribesmen in pursuit. Just as all seems lost, the cavalry arrives to save them and bring them into Lordsburg.

There, Ringo asks for the chance to face down the Plummers, and Curley lets him go. In a nighttime shootout, he kills them all and prepares to return to jail. However, Curley and Doc give him and Dallas a buckboard and set them free, off to his ranch south of the border to start a new life.

The script by Dudley Nichols is exceptional, creating a ensemble of complex, three-dimensional characters who change and grow during the course of the film. (The lady befriends Dallas; the banker is apprehended; Peacock and Buck are wounded, and Hatfield is killed.) Ford wisely lingers his camera on the faces of the participants, letting their reactions further the story. Ford shot his location work in the iconic Monument Valley, that magnificent hunk of desert on the border of Utah and Arizona. It was a landscape he would return to again and again.

The juxtaposition of the epic scope of the setting and journey with the small intimate moments the characters dwell in give the film an intense resonance. With cinematographer Bert Glennon, Ford crafts stunningly beautiful screen compositions, minute after minute. And of course, this was the movie that made John Wayne a star. (He was the lead in The Big Trail; its lack of success doomed him to a deace of work in “B” Westerns.)

The group is a microcosm of society, and a subversive one at that. The “legitimate” characters are crooked, snobbish, ineffectual. It is the outcasts and rejects who are the real noblemen and -women here. Those who lead with words do nothing to solve the group’s problems; it is those who take action that count for something. In the end, they are the only ones who emerge unscatched.

Stagecoach also includes iconic stuntwork, courtesy of the stuntman legend Yakima Canutt. The film never lags or loses its way. We are given just enough information in any given moment to advance the story or illuminate character in depth, making this a genre film that transcends genre, one that can truly be called the first adult Western.

The Old West proved fertile ground for Ford to examine the convolutions and contradictions of the American character, turning myths inside out and holding them up for our examination. Stagecoach rewards repeated viewings – notably, Orson Welles screened it multiple times prior to his making Citizen Kane. What is ostensibly a simple story becomes a moving, stirring, thought-provoking, classic motion picture.

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

NFR Project: 'Ninotchka' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Ninotchka’

Dir: Ernst Lubitsch

Scr: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch

Pho: William H. Daniels

Ed: Gene Ruggerio

Premiere: Nov. 9, 1939

110 min.

MGM was searching for a comedy to suit Greta Garbo, the mysterious and glamorous star of many dramas, both in the silent and the sound eras. A poolside conference led to the creation of a winning idea: Communist woman goes to Paris, finds out that capitalism and materialism are not so bad.

The expert writing team of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder were put on the assignment, and they produced a witty and captivating script. Then MGM brought in the master of subtle and adult film comedies Ernst Lubitsch, to direct. It was nothing less than a high-class effort, all the way.

Here Garbo plays Nina “Ninotchka” Yakushova, a stern and unsmiling Soviet bureaucrat who flies to Paris from Moscow to straighten out some comrades – the bumbling comic trio of Buljanoff, Iranoff, and Kopalski – who were assigned to sell some jewels taken by the State from their aristocratic owners, but who fell prey to the delights of the City of Light.

Ninotchka gets grimly to work, but she isn’t prepared for the charming onslaught of Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas), who is immediately attracted to her and enjoys the challenge of melting her cold, cold heart. This he does by degrees, loosening her up, making her laugh, introducing her to champagne. He and Ninotchka are rapidly falling in love, but Ninotchka is blackmailed by Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire). Swana agrees to give up her claim to the jewelry if Ninotchka will leave Paris for Moscow immediately.

This she does, returning to a Soviet existence that is defined by crowded tenements and little to eat. Morose, she waits for word from Leon, but the only letter she receives from him is censored completely. When Buljanoff, Iranoff, and Kopalski get in trouble again in Constantinople, Ninotchka is ordered once again to go to the scene of the trouble and clear things up. There she finds the three have opened a restaurant – and that Leon is there waiting for her as well. She abandons Communism and falls into Leon’s arms.

The film was a big success – except in Russia, where it was banned.

The promotional tagline of the film is “Garbo Laughs!” It was her first comedy, an her second-to-last film. After a second comedy, a flop, she spurned Hollywood and lived as a recluse in New York City.

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

NFR Project: 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’

Dir: Frank Capra

Scr: Sidney Buchman, Myles Connolly

Pho: Joseph Walker

Ed: Gene Havlick, Al Clark

Premiere: Oct. 17, 1939

130 min.

The director Frank Capra (1897-1991) is frequently disparaged as a terminal optimist. He’s a flag-waver, a vehement believer in truth, justice, and the American way. However, there’s a dark side to his popular and awarded “message” pictures, one that isn’t dispelled by their inevitable happy endings.

Capra got his start at the bottom, working all kinds of jobs and finally finding himself, through luck and bluff, contributing as a gag writer to Hal Roach’s silent Our Gang comedy shorts. Then he moved up to directing the comedian Harry Langdon in a series of successful silent films. Finally, he began to choose and create his own projects.

He struck paydirt with It Happened One Night, which won several Oscars, including Best Director for Capra. Two more of his films, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It With You, earned him Oscars as well. He was flying in industry esteem, then, when he picked his next project Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

No film executives wanted to film this picture, feeling that its discussion of political corruption would be a black eye for America, at home and abroad. A determined Capra pushed the project through.

It’s the story of naïve young Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart in a career-defining role), a publisher and scoutmaster who’s chosen to fill a Senate seat vacated by death. Little does he know that the multimedia tycoon James Taylor (Edward Arnold, marvelously villainous) really runs things in his home state, with the help of “the Silver Knight, ” Senator Paine (Claude Rains), Smith’s late father’s friend, who’s in conspiracy with him. Together they plan to pass a bill that establishes a dam built on property they’ve bought up on the sly. Their immediate goal is to keep Smith busy and distracted, so he doesn’t ask any questions about the bill.

Smith is abused by the press as a stooge, a know-nothing. His cynical, wisecracking assistant Saunders (Jean Arthur) takes pity on him, and attempts to tell how politics really work in Washington. Smith comes up with a bill of his own – the creation of national boys’ camp, unfortunately situated right where Taylor and Paine want to set up their dam. Smith discovers the conspiracy, and attempts to denounce it, but he is interrupted by Paine, who accuses him of using his bill to line his own pockets.

Soon Smith is up on charges of graft, and Taylor and his media outlets suppress his side of the story and demonize him, even going far as to forge documents insinuating Smith’s guilt. As a last-ditch effort, Smith begins a filibuster on the Senate floor, with the bemused support of the president of the Senate (Harry Carey). Taloy and his machine keep blackening Smith’s name, even going to far as to firehouse marchers and injure children distributing newspapers containing the truth.

An exhausted Smith is confronted with stacks of telegrams and letters against, finally collapses. Suddenly, Paine dashes from the room and attempts to kill himself, then runs back onto the Senate floor and confesses everything. Smith is saved.

The movie follows the pattern of many Capra films. The idealistic hero is brought down to earth by the realities of an uncaring world. He is knocked down, but not out, when others, the common people, rally around him and bring about his redemption. These finishes are crowd-pleasers, but they strain to express their ecstatic vaunting of common sense and good will. Capra believes in the power of the people – but his unrealistic endings make his sentiments appear are merely wishful thinking.

Stewart was perfect for the role, and he is aided and abetted by some of Hollywood’s best character actors – Capra’s “regulars” such as Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi, Guy Kibbee, and H.B. Warner. They are regulars in Capra’s films over the years, and they too are well-matched with their parts. The direction is unobtrusive and low-key, save for the patriotic montages concocted by the master editor Slavko Vorkapich.

When the film was released, it caused a lot of controversy. Some thought the film denigrated democracy. In truth, Capra’s revelation of how power brokers have their way with the American political process is deeply subversive, and it’s not quite cancelled out by the film’s abrupt happy ending. Taylors and Paines still abound, and the film is particularly apt for viewing in our present time of governmental corruption and scandal.

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

NFR Project: 'Midnight' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Midnight’

Dir: Mitchell Leisen

Scr: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder

Pho: Charles Lang

Ed: Doane Harrison

Premiere: March 24, 1939

94 min.

Midnight is an excellent and elegant screwball comedy, with much of the flavor of a classic French farce. It’s set in a Paris that seems equally divided between working-class cabbies and high-society figures. Its tale of love and money, and how the two don’t go hand in hand.

Claudette Colbert plays Eve Peabody, a down-on-her-luck American showgirl who arrives in the City of Light on a train, possessing nothing but the gold lamé dress on her back. She is quickly taken up by a friendly cab driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), who gallantly drives her around town to look for a job.

Unable to accept his help any further, she escapes him and makes her way into a society soiree. Desperate, she fakes belonging to this upper-crust group until she is noticed by an aging toff, Georges (John Barrymore). Georges notices that Eve draws the attention of Jacques (Francis Lederer), who is currently in the middle of an affair with his wife (Mary Astor). Georges schemes, and sets up Eve as a wealthy baroness, asking her to seduce Jacques as a way of getting him away from Georges’ wife.

Meanwhile, Tibor searches for her relentlessly, enlisting the aid of an army of cabbies to find her and report back to him. He finds that she has gone to Georges’ country estate for the weekend. Renting evening wear, he turns up at the chateau and declares himself to be Eve’s husband, “Baron” Czerny. Now all the characters are wrapped up in the throes of mistaken identity and conflicting affections.

The script is the creation of that stupendous screenwriting team, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (this film is only the second of their 16 collaborations). The script went through the usual round of studio-dictated rewrites – surprisingly, the rewrite request came around to Brackett and Wilder as well. They simply retyped the manuscript and sent it in, and were highly praised for their inventive rewrite.

The farcical photoplay in inhabited by comedic experts – Colbert and Ameche are top-notch, and Barrymore steals every scene he’s in. Eve Peabody is a modern Cinderella, but all the money in the world can’t sway her heart – she loves Tibor and can’t be without him. Mitchell Leisen does a smooth, professional job of directing. It’s not a film that leaps out at you, as do many of the more significant films of that year, but it is lovingly crafted and wittily wise.

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

NFR Project: 'The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair' (1939)

  

The Middletons examining the Time Capsule, to be opened in 6939.

NFR Project: ‘The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair’

Dir: Robert R. Snody

Scr: Reed Drummond, G.R. Hunter, Robert R. Snody

Pho: William Steiner

Ed: Sol S. Feuerman

Released 1939

54:39

It’s corporate propaganda, and as such it’s not too bad.

This is an hour-long infomercial presented by Westinghouse, which wants to show you how cool everything is with electricity, which naturally they sell.

You see, it’s the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and a big feature of the event was indeed the Westinghouse pavilion, where the family, fresh from out of town, (Ma, Pa, Grandma, the young lady Babs, and her little brother Bud) learns about how cool electricity is and how it will create a Golden Age for all of us. Thanks to the exposition provided by good old Jim Treadway who’s from back home. Oh, and he works for Westinghouse.

The heart of the drama is the romantic triangle among Babs, and the slimy art teacher-boyfriend of Babs, the evil Nicholas Makaroff, who makes paintings – abstract ones! Horreur terrible! And scoffs at everything, calling it a CAPITALIST conspiracy. In the lingo of the day, he’s a drip. Contrast him with the third leg of our triangle, good old Jim. Much more suitable, and informed. He’s a regular guy, a textbook heterosexual suitable for mating with Babs.

Nicholas scoffs. Then it turns out Nicholas is a fraud, and a cheap one at that! He is soon exposed through a Clever Ruse, and dashes away. Babs sidles up to manly Jim. Cue the electric sparks lighting up the nighttime sky.

Yes, it’s thin soup. But the narrative simply propels us into viewing Westinghouse’s concept of the future, which is filled with handy electric gadgets. There’s an electric dishwasher! There’s television, for crying out loud (the development of which was squelched by WWII). There’s even a robot who makes a dirty innuendo and smokes a cigarette! He’s like a robot Lenny Bruce..

The acting is indifferent good. The name performer in the film is Marjorie Lord as Babs. Marjorie later played Danny’s Thomas’ second wife, after Jean Hagen, in TV’s Make Room for Daddy.

As the film progresses everyone stresses their acceptance of and enthusiasm for just about everything Westinghouse wants to sell them. It’s hard to conceive of under what circumstances this film was shown. To patrons at the Fair? To the general public? To customers? Anyway, it’s an adequately filmed promotional tool. It expresses a fervid belief in the saving grace of an oncoming technological age. World War II delayed the techno-explosion that sprang to life in the postwar era.

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

NFR Project: Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial

 

NFR Project: ‘Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert’

Filmed April 9, 1939

Marian Anderson (1897-1993) was one of the most gifted contraltos of the 20^th century. Her only problem – she was Black.

Fighting prejudice every step of the way, she trained with various voice teachers and finally made an impact with a recital held with the New York Philharmonic on Aug. 26, 1925. People loved her rich, velvety voice, which expressed itself with precision and grace. However, because of her skin color, many times she could not get access to traditional classical-music venues in America.

So she went to Europe to study and perform. There she became incredibly popular, building a reputation, and notably establishing a friendship with the composer Sibelius. Her increased reputation led to more concert appearances in the U.S., but again she had problems being accommodated in hotels and restaurants due merely to her skin color. Friends would house and feed her -- including Albert Einstein.

In 1939, she attempted to give a concert at Washington, D.C.’s Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, which had a whites-only policy. She was denied. She then tried to secure the use of the auditorium of D.C.’s Central High School – and was again turned down, this time by the District of Columbia Board of Education. Thousands of her supporters were pissed, and a coalition of Black activists got to work.

Finally, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes was convinced to stage her recital on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This they did on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939. The open-air concert was attended by more than 75,000 people, and was carried on NBC radio. “Genius, like Justice, is blind,” declared Ickes.

Anderson sang her heart out. She sang “My CVountry ‘Tis of Thee,” the aria “O mio Fernando” from Donizetti’s “La Favorita”, and Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” After a brief intermission, she sang three spirituals, “Gospel Train,” “Travelin’”, and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” She was applauded frenetically. For once, a Black artist stood up to the racists that controlled the American culture, and triumphed over them with a concert heard by millions.

She continued her career. She sang for the troops during World War II and the Korean War. She headlined on live TV on June 15, 1953, broadcast on both NBC and CBS. Finally, on January 7, 1955, she became the first Black singer to appear on the stage at the Metropolitan Opera. She continued to work extensively until her retirement form singing in 1965.

Only excerpts of her concert were released on newsreel film at the time, but the entire performance was recorded on film and archived. Today we can see and hear her thrilling performance, and wonder now what kind of society made it so hard for her to shine her light for everyone.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair.

NFR Project: 'Gunga Din' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Gunga Din’

Dir: George Stevens

Scr: Joel Sayre, Fred Guiol

Pho: Joseph A. August

Ed: Henry Berman

Premiere: Feb.17, 1939

117 min.

It’s one of the most successful adventure films of all time, structured perfectly to propel its story forward. It took many writers to get it into shape. It has since drawn fire for its pro-imperialist, fundamentally racist foundations.

The movie is derived very loosely from the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling. It’s set in India, during the days when the British Empire ruled it. A sect of religious fanatics, the Thugees, threaten to overthrow English rule. Arrayed against them is the British army, and three sergeants – Cutter (Cary Grant), MacChesney (Victor McLaglen), and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) The three are happy-go-lucky soldiers who aren’t afraid of a fight. One of their regimental bhistis (water carriers), Gunga Din, (played by the white Sam Jaffe in brownface). Din longs to be a soldier, but is looked down on as a mere servant. Ballantine, shortly to end his enlistment and retire, is mocked by his two friends.

A fight they get. First, they are sent out to discover what happened to an outpost that has lost contact with headquarters. There they find the Thugees in strength, and they fight their way to safety in a well-staged set piece of a battle. The three return to base, but Cutter soon goes astray. He wants to loot a hidden temple high in the mountains, but is placed in the stockade to prevent this. He escapes with the help of Din and an elephant.

The temple is found, but it is full of Thugees who are planning an uprising against the regiment. Cutter sends Din to warn the others, then gets himself captured. MacChesney and Ballantine come to his rescue (Ballantine signs reenlistment papers to do so), but are captured as well. There they hear from the sinister Guru of the Thugees (another white man in brownface, Eduardo Cianelli), who outline his plan for the destruction of the regiment.

The regiment arrives, and the three try desperately to warn them, to no avail. Din climbs to the top of the temple and sounds the alarm on a bugle saving the regiment – and is shot down for his pains. The enemy is routed, and the three are back together again, somewhat worse for wear. Din is posthumously made a corporal.

The script was worked on by Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol, working from an outline created by the great writing team of Ben Hechy and Charles MacArthur. Additional rewrites were wrung out of Leston Cohen, James Colton, the famous novelist William Faulkner, Vincent Lawrence, Dudley Nichols, and Anthony Veiller.

Despite all these cooks, the broth comes out tasty. The action is inventive, streamlined, and continuous, broken up only by effective comic scenes. It’s a boys’ film – the only woman in the scenario is dispensed with rather quickly. The movie has energy, flair, and wit.

The problems? Well, naturally, the movie is on the side of the Empire, portraying non-white character as either fools or devils. The primary Indian roles are played by white men in literal brownface and body makeup. This kind of taken-for-granted racism pervades the film.

The great German playwright Bertolt Brecht had these interesting words to say about it: “"I felt like applauding, and laughed in all the right places, despite the fact that I knew all the time that there was something wrong, that the Indians are not primitive and uncultured people but have a magnificent age-old culture, and that this Gunga Din could also be seen in a different light, e.g. as a traitor to his people, I was amused and touched because this utterly distorted account was an artistic success and considerable resources in talent and ingenuity had been applied in making it. Obviously artistic appreciation of this sort is not without effects. It weakens the good instincts and strengthens the bad, it contradicts true experience and spreads misconceptions, in short it perverts our picture of the world."

Interesting. Of course, he is correct in his observations. If you turn off your brain and watch it, you are bound to have a good time. Grant, MacLaglen, and Fairbanks are all perfect for their roles, and their banter is top-notch. Director Stevens creates two battles, the latter staged with hundreds of extras, and handles those conflicts with flair. In the end, the movie is irresistible, despite its imperialistic underpinnings.

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

NFR Project: 'Gone with the Wind' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Gone with the Wind’

Dir: Victor Fleming (and four others)

Scr: Sidney Howard (and 14 others)

Pho: Ernest Haller

Ed: Hal C. Kern, James E. Newcom

Premiere: Dec. 15, 1939

221 min.

It’s the ultimate blockbuster. Based on a best-selling historical novel, Gone with the Wind is still the highest-grossing motion picture of all time. It is also the epitome of Hollywood style, a textbook example of how to create a stirring epic that still leaves room and bears focus enough to illuminate the lives of its imaginary characters.

Margareet Mitchell’s 1936 book, a literary pot-boiler, was so popular that it was quickly optioned for adaptation to the big screen. Producer David O. Selznick was determined to create the ultimate epic, and the run-up to filming included contributions by no fewer than 15 scriptwriters. Additionally, the competition for the lead role of Scarlett O’Hara meant that thousands of actresses were considered for the part. In the end, Selznick had a screenplay that told the mammoth story cogently. At the last, he found his Scarlett in the person of English actress Vivien Leigh.

The process of making the film was debilitating, requiring the efforts of five different directors to finish. Its enormous crowd scenes and awe-inspiring special effects were logistical nightmares to pull off. Thousands of extras were costumed, herded, and shot (with a camera, natch). Max Steiner’s brilliant score pumped the movie full of energy. Given the fine performances by the principals, the result is a luxurious four-hour visual feast that manages to be compelling on the human scale as well.

It’s a story of the American South. It’s the eve of the Civil War, and young Scarlett O’Hara (Leigh) is a treasured, and spoiled, oldest daughter of Gerald O’Hara (Thomas Mitchell), owner of the plantation Tara. She is selfish, narcissistic, and materialistic – but she is our heroine, and Leigh gives this Southern belle a flinty, stubbornly brave core that causes us to root for her, despite her obvious drawbacks (let’s face it, she’s a bitch).

Scarlett is obsessed with Ashley Wilkes (fellow English actor Leslie Howard), a planter who’s engaged to her do-good cousin Melanie (Olivia de Havilland). Scarlett frets and stews over her attraction to Ashley, but all this drama recedes into the background when war is declared and all the menfolk set out for what they think will be a brief campaign. Into the picture steps the anti-hero Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), an assured, amoral

Spitefully, Scarlett agrees to marry Melanie’s brother, Charles, who shortly after dies of pneumonia on the battlefield. Freshly widowed, Scarlett insists on dancing with Butler at a charity ball, scandalizing her peers. The two are obviously meant for each other, but their initial contacts are fraught with conflict.

The South’s inevitable losses begin to pile up, and soon Atlanta is under siege. Melanie gives birth, and she and Scarlett are brought out of the path of the advancing Union Army by Rhett and returned to Tara, now an abandoned and bereft locale. Scarlett swears that she and her family will never go hungry again.

In the aftermath of the War, the family toils in the fields in order to maintain their ownership of Tara. Scarlett tries to obtain needed tax money form Rhett, to no avail. She then steals her sister’s beau, the well-off store owner Frank Kennedy and saves the plantation. Scarlett proves to be a ruthless businesswoman, utilizing convict labor to staff her business interests.

She becomes a free woman again after her husband is killed leading an attack on the “poor trash” that threaten the safety of Atlanta’s (white) womenfolk. Free to marry, she accepts Rhett’s proposal.

Though they are wealthy, their marriage is a tempestuous one. They have a child together, but that daughter dies tragically. Finally, Rhett is determined to leave Scarlett, who asks for another chance. “What will I do?” she asks. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he replies, and leaves. But Scarlett is not deterred; she realizes she really loves Rhett, not Ashley, and vows to get him back, considering that “tomorrow is another day!”

Scarlett is a difficult character to figure out. She is a proto-feminist figure, one who acts rather than is acted upon, as is the case with the film’s other female characters. However, she does define herself through her relationships with men, and was the case for most women at the time. She is willful and spirited, but the story goes out of its way to punish her for her independence. It is only her final affirmation that she will survive and succeed that breaks her out of the Hollywood trap of destroying a female character that challenges society’s norms.

Then there is the elephant in the room: slavery. Although their plight motivates the entirety of the film, Black characters are seldom to be found here, and when they are they are at best portrayed as benevolent children – at worst, as loud and threatening Negroes. Hollywood was just as racist as the rest of the country when the book was written and the film was made, and the procession of Black stereotypes – the whiny maid, the bossy “mammy”, the stupid groomsman – plods steadily through the movie. According to the film, slavery exists merely to suffice as plot points for the doings of the movie’s white characters. It would have you believe that the War was about states’ rights and the preservation of the South’s courtly, antebellum way of life.

The film’s lavish settings and big set pieces – the camera’s dolly shot, pulling back and back, revealing more and more dead and wounded Confederates in the Atlanta rail yards, is still stirring – are feasts for the eye. Never was so much effort put into a convincing remounting of history, prejudiced in the “Lost Cause” of the South though it is. Despite its numerous drawbacks, it still plays well today, a remarkable artifact from when Hollywood was king and no expense was too great to make a memorable film.

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

NFR Project: Harry Smith's ‘Early Abstractions: #1-5, 7, 10’ (1939-1956)

 

NFR Project: ‘Early Abstractions: #1-5, 7, 10’ (1939-1956)

Created by Harry Smith

Premiere: various

23 min.

Harry Smith (1923-1991) was a genius. He is best known today for compiling the famous 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, which influenced countless musicians and listeners, and helped to fuel the folk boom of the early 1960s.

Smith himself swung wildly from obsession to obsession. He studied anthropology and the occult. He painted pictures, many of them lost or destroyed; he pioneered the use of psychotropic drugs. He was a mystic and a self-styled shaman.

His films were always works in progress. He was decades ahead of his time in that he created abstract animations, some painted directly on the film stock, others utilizing a cut-and-paste, stop-motion technique. His innovations inspired filmmakers as diverse as Stan Brakhage and Terry Gilliam.

The fruits of his painstaking labors are fascinating. They are a rush of changing shapes and colors, culminating in the kaleidoscope effects of Variation #10, which features mandalas, sephiras (kabalistic “trees of life”), spirals, cascades of tarot cards, and demonic and Buddhist symbols.

Smith, in his own inimitable way, describes his output below.

Per EM Arts --

“My cinematic excreta is of four varieties: - batiked abstractions made directly on film between 1939 and 1946, optically printed non-objective studies composed around 1950, semi-realistic animated collages made as part of my alchemical labours of 1957 to 1962, and chronologically superimposed photographs of actualities formed since the latter year. All these works have been organised in specific patterns derived from the interlocking beats of the respiration, the heart and the EEG Alpha component and should be observed together in order, or not at all, for they are valuable works, works that will live forever - they made me gray.

No. 1: Hand-drawn animation of dirty shapes - the history of the geologic period reduced to orgasm length.

No. 2: Batiked animation, etc. etc. The action takes place either inside the sun or in Zurich, Switzerland.

No. 3: Batiked animation made of dead squares, the most complex hand-drawn film imaginable.

No. 4: Black-and-white abstractions of dots and grill-works made in a single night.

No. 5: Color abstraction. Homage to Oscar Fischinger - a sequel to No. 4.

No. 7: Optically printed Pythagoreanism in four movements supported on squares, circles, grill-works and triangles with an interlude concerning an experiment.

No. 10: An exposition of Buddhism and the Kabala in the form of a collage. The final scene shows Aquatic mushrooms (not in No. 11) growing on the moon while the Hero and Heroine row by on a cerebrum.”

Harry Smith from Film-makers’ Cooperative Catalogue 3, pp. 57-58

Sitting down to a intensely focused session of viewing his films, it is easy to see the hallucinogenic thrusts of his work, which seeks to overwhelm the visual sense of the viewer and push them into a transcendent state. Nearly a century after their creation, they are still ahead of their time, full of mystery and the excitement of seeing everything with otherworldly eyes.

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

NFR Project: 'Destry Rides Again' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Destry Rides Again’

Dir: George Marshall

Scr: Henry Myers, Gertrude Purcell

Pho: Hal Mohr

Ed: Miton Carruth

Premiere: Dec. 29, 1939

95 min.

Another curious selection by the National Film Registry. A pleasant film, but there is little that is remarkable about it.

The film is a Western, a comedy, and a musical all wrapped into one. It concerns the Old West town of Bottleneck, in which there is little enforcement of the laws, leading to chaos controlled only by the corrupt actions of saloon owner Kent (Brian Donlevy) and the tobacco-chewing mayor Slade (Samuel S. Hinds). When the town’s sheriff is murdered for trying to interfere with some criminal behavior, the town drunk Wash (Charles Winninger) is cynically chosen by the bad guys to serve as his replacement.

However, Wash takes his new job seriously, stops drinking, and hires the son of a famous lawman, Tom Destry Jr. (Jimmy Stewart) to serve as deputy. Destry shows up in town, wearing no guns and promoting the peaceful solution of the town’s problems. He is immediately mocked and despised by the citizenry. However, the bad guys underestimate him. First he proves to be a crack shot, then he uncovers the mystery of the previous sheriff’s murder.

He also wins the affections of Frenchy, the dance-hall girl (Marlene Dietrich) who is Kent’s companion and fellow crook. Destry apprehends one of Kent’s gang, but a gang of badmen release the prisoner from the jail, shooting Wash fatally in the process. An incensed Destry straps on his guns and rallies the whole town to attack Kent’s saloon and overthrow his reign of terror.

The film was a departure for Dietrich, who had appeared in a lavish series of films, most directed by Josef von Sternberg, but was now not deemed to be star material. She took a pay cut to play Frenchy, which she pulls off with grace and panache, singing several musical numbers along the way (this character was parodied by Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles). She proves to be as adept doing comedy as she does the drama of the film.

This is Jimmy Stewart’s first Western, remarkably; the iconic, brooding Westerns he made with Anthony Mann were more than a decade away.

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

NFR Project: 'Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther’

Dir: Esther and Ray Dowidat

Scr: Esther and Ray Dowidat

Pho: Esther and Ray Dowidat

Ed: Esther and Ray Dowidat

Premiere: 1939

15:30 

Home movies are exactly that – records of family life, a way of preserving the memory of loved ones. In this case, the home movie becomes an ambitious documentary that gives us the portrait of a small town in America in the 1930s.

First, do read Scott Simmon’s excellent essay on the film, which you can click on here. He makes the point that the filmmakers, married couple Esther and Dr. Ray Dowidat, were possessed of a very professional spirit. Their film covers the time period from July to September, 1939, and profiles the tiny town of Cologne, Minnesota, pop. 350, located southwest of Minneapolis.

The film starts with a literal overview of the town – a panoramic taking-in of the town from its highest points. It discusses the nature of the inhabitants – mostly of German and Dutch descent – and provides a pocket history of the town, once an important rail junction but now a sleepy backwater. We see various citizens doing their jobs (fortunately, Dowdidat had access to a bright spotlight, and used it to record interior scenes fairly clearly). We go to the local saloon.

The film moves briskly along, punctuated by written passages from the Dowidats’ “diary” entries, which serve as a guide and as a framing device. The end result is a well-crafted film that belies its origins as a hobby, and rises to the level of homespun art.

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

NFR Project: 'The City' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘The City’

Dir: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke

Scr: Pare Lorentz, Henwar Rodakiewicz, Lewis Mumford

Pho: Ralph Steiner, Willard Van Dyke

Ed: Theodore Lawrence

Premiere: 1939

43:43

This documentary is one that advocates for a new kind of living space – the suburbs.

This film was produced under the auspices of a coalition of urban planners. It seeks to outline the nature of American city structures, decries the negative aspects of urban life, and posits “planned communities” to take their place. It was firt shown at the New York World’s Fair in 1939.

The movie is simply one of visuals married to a voiceover narration. In the first third of the film, we are taken on a survey of the typical American small town, adjacent to the country’s rural roots. Then we move into an indictment of the big city, decrying its negative influence on its inhabitants. Then we are whisked away to admire the virtues of the suburbs – an integration of nature and the man-made landscape, single-family homes with lawns, all inhabited by white people. It’s a vision that would come to fruition after World War II, when Levittown and its descendants began to cover the landscape.

The film is impressively matched up with an Aaron Copland score (his first for film), and sonorous narration by Morris Carnovsky. The argument for a reconstruction of American living space is somewhat persuasive, but then this film is on a mission of advocacy, and the images and words are in the service of that vision. The suburbs, it turns out, came with their own drawbacks, economic and environmental. However, at the time this film was made, there was little thought given to a different way of life than the crowded, congested stresses of urban living.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Cologne: From the Diary of Ray and Esther.

NFR Project: 'Only Angels Have Wings' (1939)

 

NFR Project: ‘Only Angels Have Wings’

Dir: Howard Hawks

Scr: Jules Furthman, Howard Hawks

Pho: Joseph Walker

Ed: Viola Lawrence

Premiere: May 15, 1939

121 min.

This film, one of cinema’s great adventure dramas, is considered the epitome of the Howard Hawks style. Director Hawks left a distinctive fingerprint on many of his films – so much so that this particular kind of film is regularly referred to as “Hawksian.”

The Hawksian world is inhabited by cynical, tough-talking men. They face danger bravely and with a dismissive humor. A man is what he does, or in the worst case, what he cannot do. The Hawksian woman is independent, tough-talking, gifted with the ability to trade wisecracks with the guys. Together they create a miniature society of daredevils, people who inhabit the dangerous margins of life to fulfill tasks that ordinary people would balk at.

In this case, the scene is set in an imaginary South American country, in the town of Barranca. Here Geoff Carter (Cary Grant) leads a ragtag bunch of flyers whose job it is to fly mail and supplies up and over an intimidating range of Andean mountains inland. The company must make its deliveries in order to win a lucrative contract, despite hazards such as fog, storm, and bird strikes.

Into this milieu falls Bonnie Lee (perky Jean Arthur), an entertainer off the boat with a minimum of baggage and a maximum of curiosity. Naturally, she falls for Geoff, but Geoff was spurned by a woman over his risk-taking, so he’s sour on the idea of women, and emotion in general.

Onto the scene steps MacPherson (the great silent star Richard Barthlemess), a flyer with a checkered past who wants to get back into the game. It turns out that he bailed out of a burning plane, leaving his mechanic to die. That mechanic was the brother of The Kid (Thomas Mitchell), Geoff’s right-hand man. Despite everyone’s prejudice against him, Geoff takes him on.

It also turns out that MacPherson is married to Judy (Rita Hayworth, in her star-making turn) – the woman who broke Geoff’s heart. Their reconnection is bitter.

The Kid’s eyesight is failing, so Geoff must ban him from flying. Another dangerous mission comes up, and Geoff is all set to fly it when Bonnie accidentally shoots him. MacPherson must go, and the Kid volunteers to go with him in a new plane designed to fly over the high peaks.

The plane stalls out in the thin atmosphere, and the flying duo are forced to turn back. They run into a flock of buzzards, some of which crash through the windscreen, crippling the Kid and setting the engines on fire. MacPherson, struggling mightily, brings the plane back safely.

The Kid dies of his injuries. MacPherson, having redeemed himself, is welcomed by the other pilots. Geoff finally lets Bonnie know that he wants her to stay. Can she stand the uncertainty of not knowing whether he’ll come back alive from his job or not? The answer is a pretty confident yes.

The movie is filled with distinct characters, all cracking wise. Sig Rumann, who normally played pompous leaders or villains, actually gets a sympathetic part here and plays it well. The film, crowded with action, moves along at a dizzying pace. Add plenty of flying shots, supplemented by some good model work, and you have a strikingly engaging story on your hands.

Paradoxically, the gruff gents who work for the ragtag airline are actually sentimental fools. Their feelings of loss when one of their number crashes and dies are palpable. There are guys who care deeply about each other, and about their mission. It is their determination to be tough that makes them seem so abrasive, callous even. Hawks is careful to show us this aspect of their emotional lives, sublimated into anger and alcohol abuse.

Joseph Walker’s cinematography is top-notch; the settings are shrouded in fog and most of the action takes place at night. The noirish cast of the images perfectly suits the story of men gambling with their lives.

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

NFR Project: 'Under Western Stars' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘Under Western Stars’

Dir: Joseph Kane

Scr: Dorrell McGowan, Stuart E. McGowan, Betty Burbridge

Pho: Jack Marta

Ed: Lester Orlebeck

Premiere: April 20, 1938

65 min.

It is a dicey proposition to think that this Western musical earned its way into the National Film Registry. It is significant only in that it marks the first starring role of Roy Rogers (1911-1998), soon to become known as the “King of the Cowboys.”

Cowboy singing star Gene Autry (1907-1998) was responsible for Roy Rogers’ success. It seems that he was p.o.ed with Republic Pictures head Herbert Yates, who felt that he was solely responsible for Autry’s fame. 

Autry grew up the son of a preacher in Texas. He was a young man who worked as a telegrapher for a railroad, and sang and accompanied himself on guitar to pass the time away.

He finally won a recording contract, and in 1932 hit with his first big song, “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine”. He made it big in the movies in 1935 with his starring role in the bizarre Western/musical/sci-fi serial The Phantom Empire. He made 44 films in five years, and was everyone’s favorite singing cowboy, who could fight and shoot and ride adequately.

At this point in their association, Yates felt that he should get a cut of all of Autry's revenue. Autry, to put it mildly, disagreed.

Yates, feeling he could create another screen cowboy hero out of whole cloth, did so. He picked out a handsome, tuneful young man named Leonard Slye, who was part of the successful, original singing group the Son of the Pioneers. Yates changed his name to Roy Rogers, and stuck him in this film, which Autry was supposedly to play.

The story covers the election of Roy to Congress, where he works to ease the grip the local water company has on his constituents. That’s it. There is little to none of the chases, fights, or shootouts common to the Western B-movie to this point in time. There is a heck of a lack of water, and Rogers exposes other politicaians to the drought to make his point about releasing the life-giving water to his friends and neighbors. Roy is pleasant, winning, and sings like a bird. Even gifted with Autry’s old comic sidekick Smiley Burnette, the results are, shall we say, stultifying.

Well, it was a huge hit, and fostered Rogers’ career in film, on television, and via recordings through the rest of his life. For many, he is the personification of the happy singing cowpoke. He certainly was pleasant, and is attractive here – but he made better films (he racked up 125 before he was done).

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

NFR Project: 'The River' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘The River’

Dir: Pare Lorentz

Scr: Pare Lorentz

Pho: Floyd Crosby, Willard Van Dyke, Stacy Woodard

Ed: Lloyd Nosler, Leo Zochling

Premiere: Feb. 4, 1938

31 min.

Pare Lorentz made a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker with The Plow that Broke the Plains in 1936. This examination of the Dust Bowl and plans for its mitigation was lauded by many, but abhorred by some as it appeared to them to be government propaganda. I wrote about it here.

For his second great documentary, Lorentz chose to cover the Mississippi River, that great avenue of commerce and travel. Once again, there was a didactic side to the film – Lorentz brings up deforestation and overfarming, and posits the dam construction work of FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority as the solution to flood control and recovery of farmland and forest.

Lorentz chose a lyrical, poetic approach to the subject. He invokes the might of the river, and reels off a list of its tributaries in Whitmanesque style. He covers the river’s past, giving us shots of abandoned Southern mansions and including a quote from Robert E. Lee. Then he turns to the present, outlining the region’s problems with water and advocating government interventions to fix it.

The film does not deal in concrete specifics – the images are generic, and are chosen for their aesthetic beauty. Men and mules are silhouetted against the sky; water drips, meanders, and rushes. The Virgil Thomson score is outstanding, providing depth and weight to the scenes that are edited together. This time, Lorentz followed a filming schedule and created a budget, allowing him to work efficiently and with more assured focus.

Once again, there was some trouble with viewers and critics, who found it to be pushing the government’s agenda, which it certainly is. But Lorentz’s strong sense of imagery, backed up by an equally strong poetic narration (which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry), transcends the programmatic aspect of the film, giving us a stirring portrait of natural and man-made forces at work.

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

NFR Project: 'Porky in Wackyland' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘Porky in Wackyland’

Dir: Bob Clampett

Scr: Warren Foster

Ed: Treg Brown

Premiere: Sept. 24, 1938

7:23

Nobody was paying attention, and they got away with it.

As I wrote for Senses of Cinema in 2005, “American animators in the 1930s were a scruffy, itinerant bunch. Most bounced around from studio to studio, serving apprenticeships in the cartoon production houses of such figures as Walt Disney, Walter Lantz (best known as the home of Woody Woodpecker), the Fleischer Brothers (Betty Boop, Koko the Clown), and Disney’s once and future partner, Ub Iwerks. Serendipitously, an irreverent and rowdy crew came together at Leon Schlesinger Productions, in a ramshackle, bug-infested back-lot bungalow that later earned the affectionate sobriquet of ‘Termite Terrace.’

“For a time this group included such leading lights as Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimson, and Bob Clampett, all working under the loose supervision and raucous inspiration of Fred “Tex” Avery (who lost the vision in one eye during an office paper-clip fight!). The team enjoyed that most happy of fates to be found inside any corporate structure – they were largely ignored. Left to their own devices, they began gradually and collectively to shrug off the nominally logical, linear, kid-oriented whimsies that emerged from other rivals’ drawing boards.”

In terms of structure, Porky in Wackyland is a classic type, here the “hunted outsmarts hunter” paradigm, common in the cartoon lives of Porky Pig -- he Warner’s first big cartoon star, soon to be joined by Elmer Fudd, and gradually relegated to a supporting role, usually serving as a sidekick to Daffy Duck – Bugs Bunny, Daffy, and later examples such as Speedy Gonzales and the Roadrunner.

Director Bob Clampett was working under Avery, who saw no reason why all the rules of cartooning should not be relentlessly violated. Warren Foster was the writer, but it was common for the inhabitants of the Terrace to help each other out with gags. The teamwork needed to produce a quality cartoon in a set amount of time makes every Warners cartoon a collaborative effort. And in this case, it was open season on reality.

The film opens by breaking the fourth wall. Out in front of the title credits strides a doggy newspaper vendor; “Ex-tree! Ex=tree! Read all about it! Porky off on do-do hunt! Paper, mister?”

The headline: “PORKY HUNTS RARE DO-DO BIRD WORTH $4000,000,000” (four thousand million, technically) “P.S. 000,000,000”. They really hammer the gag into the ground, an early sign that all bets are off when it comes to verisimilitude. The front-page photo comes to life, and Porky is winging his way east. He turns to us, displaying a picture of his quarry – an oblong, pointy-headed, tufted loony bird. “Hi, f-f-f-folks, here’s a pudda-- -dip-a-pudda--dip--p-p-p-p-p-picture!” He weaves his way through Dark Africa, Darker Africa, and Darkest Africa, straight into territory marked “?” Porky is an unlikely colonizer.

He screeches to a halt in front of a large sign. “WELCOME TO WACKYLAND. IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.” (A reference to Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel about an attack of American fascism, It Can’t Happen Here.) “POPULATION: 100 NUTS AND A SQUIRREL.”

Porky and his plane tiptoe nervously into a forest of mushrooms under a sky that changes immediately to night. From the foliage emerges a ravening monster, who comes at Porky, growling and howling. Suddenly, it changes to coy, lisps “Boo!” and sashays offscreen. From monster to drag queen in zero seconds.

The sun rises, held aloft by a stack of eccentric figures. Again, Porky turns to us and gives us look, pointing gleefully at the scene. The camera pans right to a creature sitting in a flower, playing its nose like a flute – then switching rapidly to drums and then piano. We track past a bizarre collection of chattering, absurd beings who seem lost in the surreal actions they execute. All of them cavort against abstract backgrounds.

We see a rabbit swinging by his ears, a derbied, bow-tied frog with human legs. There’s more creatures, a slew of them that pass in front of us – something called a Foo, another that’s only a head with legs and feet, no body; upside-down signs, crazy clocks, a jailbird who carries his own cell with him, free to move but clamoring to be let out. A tiny policeman rolls up on a wheel and bashes him in the head – which breaks the bars, triggering a handful of stars, while the prisoner grins with delight.

Another creature crosses the screen, mouthing with its big lips “Mammy! Mammy!” a la Al Jolson. A whirling, snarling streak circles Porky, then comes to rest. It’s a half-dog, half-cat fighting with itself. Another being emerges from behind an igloo – it’ a three-headed critter that abuses itself, a la the Three Stooges. The three heads address the camera in gibberish. A tiny creature rolls out and explains, “He said his mother was frightened by a pawnbroker’s sign!” (three balls were the ancient symbol of a pawnbroker’s shop).

Finally, Porky runs across a rolling-eyed goon wearing a lit candel that advertises “INFORMTION ABOUT THE DO-DO”.

“Oh my gosh, where is he?” Porky gasps. “Where did he go?” A profusion of pointing hands explodes, indicating everywhere. “THATAWAY!” the goon cries. Then the signboard flips, revealing shaft and proclaiming “TO THE DO-DO.” Beckoned, Porky leaps into the opening – a finds himself sliding rapidly down a long, bumpy ramp.

He is squeezed out of a tap like a drop of water, reconstituting himself in a small tub. A curtain appears in front of him, and a voice from above declares, “INTRODUCING . . . IN PERSON . . .”, after which a series of doors open, rise, turn – to reveal a castle, on which there is a neon sign reading “the Do-Do.” The castle’s drawbridge falls, and across the moat in a motorboat comes the do-do!

He anchors his boat, which blithely sinks. “Are you ree-ree-really the last of the do-dos?” asks Porky. “YEAH,” replies the bird, bending Porky backward with his emphasis. “I am de last of the do-dos!” And he proceeds to dance all over the hapless pig, singing, “Vo-do-de-o-do!” He runs off, runs back on from the other side of the screen, and hoots at Porky, driving him up into the air.

The do-do is clearly in charge of what’s real and what’s not by now, and he leads Porky on a merry chase across a surreal landscape, hiding behind impossibly thin pseudo-trees. He demonstrates his mastery over the medium by producing a pencil from this air, drawing a door to escape through -- then lifts the door up like a curtain to escape. Naturally, Porky can’t follow him.

As Porky struggles to open the door, the do-do hoots at him from a nearby second-story window suspended in the empty sky. Porky leaps into the opening, as the do-do circles behind him and kicks him through, landing him in the desert beyond, not in a notional room in a house. The do-do withdraws his permission for Porky to live by the rules he establishes.The do-do creates an elevator car, and takes it up and out of the shot. Porky stretches up to look at it, and then most bizarrely the do-do rides in on the Warner Brothers logo and snaps Porky in the head with a slingshot, retreating from whence he came.

The dodo finds himself trapped, then lifts the scene like a shade, escaping into a fresh background behind it. He pulls a brick wall across the screen after him, which Porky crashes into. The poor pig sits in the wreaked pile of bricks and cries, finally worn down to defeat.

Or is he? Disguised as a newspaper vendor, Porky cries “Ex-tree! Ex-tree! Porky catches do-do bird!” He has adopted the backwards logic of Wackylnd to achieve his goal. The do-do bird strolls by him and stops. “What’s that? What’s that? How? Where? When?”

“N-n-n-n-n-n-now!” cries Porky, and he bashes the creature on the head. Grabbing him by the neck, he exults. “Oh, b-b-b-boy, I caught the last of the d-d-d-d-d-do-dos!”

“Yeah, I’m really the last of the do-dos,” the bird exclaims. “Ain’t I, fellas?”

A hundred more do-dos fill the screen. “Yeah, man! WOOOOOO!” they cry. Porky’s discovery is not so special.

This is the comedy of frustration, extended as far as possible into absurdity as the creators thought they could go. The theme of a cartoon character not having control over his surroundings would be used again, as in Duck Amuck (1953). However, the cartooning at Termite Terrace would never go as far out of this world as in this one.

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

 

 

 

NFR Project: 'Our Day' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘Our Day’

Dir: Wallace Kelly

Premiere: 1938

16:27

Here’s a literal slice of life. It’s a home-made documentary that outlines the day’s activities of a typical middle-class, white American family in the early 20^th century.

The director, Wallace Kelly, enlisted his own family members to “play” themselves as they go through all their usual activities – waking, bathing, dressing, eating breakfast, going to work, coming home, having dinner, playing games, and then retiring for the evening.

The film spools silently through their pleasant day. There is nothing to indicate where these people are living (it’s Lebanon, Kentucky), their political affiliations, or anything particularly distinguishing about them (the director’s brother plays the piano). These are just regular folks, living out what looks to be a quietly satisfying life together.

As documentation of what normality looked like at the time, it’s a marvelous record.

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

NFR Project: 'The March of Time -- Inside Nazi Germany' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany’

Dir: Jack Glenn

Premiere: Jan. 18, 1938

16 min.

The March of Time originated as a radio program on WLW in Cincinnati in 1928. It became popular, and went to CBS in 1931. Conceived of as a weekly half-hour summary of world news, it was sponsored by Time magazine. In each half-hour, straight reporting would be mixed with dramatic reenactments. The show used actors who sounded uncannily like the world leaders that were quoted in the show, giving the audience a sense of authenticity and immediacy that was unmatched.

In 1935, a film version of The March of Time began to play in movie houses across the country, at the rate of about one a month. These were usually a compilation of reporting on different events, but this episode is different. This particular episode tackled only one subject -- marking the first time that the mainstream American media took a good, hard look at the goings-on in Nazi Germany.

The film is definitely peddling a viewpoint. It establishes Germany as a calm and happy land, then digs underneath the rhetoric to outline the Reich’s actions against religious freedom, against Jews, against union organizing, subordinating everyone and everything to the needs of the state.

The film’s narrator notes that there is “no apparent resentment against a government whose campaign and suppression and regimentation has shocked the world’s democracies,” going on to state that “Every known radical, every known liberal, is either in hiding, in prison, or dead.”

It sees the Nazis as abhorrent and is not unwilling to say so. “To the good Nazi, not even God is above Hitler.” It outlines how all media is controlled by state propagandists, and how all communications of its citizens are monitored to ensure purity of thought. All the resources of the state are placed at the disposal of Hitler and his minions, to glorify their hateful philosophy of racial superiority.

It speaks to the privations of the ordinary people of Germany, condemning them for trading freedom for security. The film is bolstered with images of the duped people, of Hitler, of Nazi-ism at work. The indoctrination of youth is particularly emphasized. A child is taught that “he is born to die for the Fatherland,” that he must “think and act as he is told.” The movie even makes the eerie prediction that Germany would soon invade other countries in order to absorb their resources and means of production. It even exposed the activities of American pro-Nazi groups, which were more prevalent than we would care to remember today.

Surprisingly, many in America weren’t ready for the message. Warner Brothers refused to show the film in its theaters, and the Chicago Board of Censors banned it as unfriendly to Germany. It was unusual for a news organization to advocate strongly against a sitting government, but by this time, the truth about the dangers of fascism was finally getting out and finding general acceptance. The March of Time is sounding a warning; one that would go unheeded until it was too late to stop a second World War.

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

NFR Project: 'Love Finds Andy Hardy' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘Love Finds Andy Hardy’

Dir: George B. Seitz

Scr: Vivien R. Bretherton

Pho: Lester White

Ed: Ben Lewis

Premiere: July 22, 1938

91 min.

Nostalgia for a reality that never existed.

This film is a shining example of what used to be referred to as a “B movie,” one that was paired with a more prestigious “A” picture to fill out a theater’s schedule. (Double features, preceded by such things as a newsreel, a cartoon, and a “short subject” film, were once the norm.)

This is the fourth of 16 Andy Hardy movies, and the first one in which his name is used in the title, cementing Mickey Rooney’s status as a star performer. These small-town comedy/dramas dealt with the adventures of teenage Andy (Rooney), his older sister, and his parents.

In Andy’s world, there is no poverty, no strife, and no minorities. His father, kindly old Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone), is wise and relatable, his mother sweet and domestic. Andy’s big issue is buying a used car to take his girlfriend Polly to the high school’s big Christmas Eve dance.

But then Polly has to go out of town and miss the festivities. Andy pledges to go stag (alone) to the dance – but then a friend of his is going out of town, and wants Andy to “date” his girl (a very young Lana Turner) in his absence, to keep other boys from hitting on her. Promised enough money to buy his car for this favor, he agrees.

Soon, it happens that Polly will actually be back in town in time for the dance. Andy must now juggle two girls at once. Fortunately, he is helped by a third girl, young Betsy (Judy Garland!), who acts as a kind of friend and fairy godsister to him. Plans go awry, misunderstandings crop up, and soon it’s anyone’s guess whether Andy will have any date at all. It takes some time for him to unravel his problems, in order to produce the requisite happy ending.

The film is directed competently by George Seitz; the script is inoffensive and the hijinks are, today, somewhat watchable. (The big highlight is seeing a 16-year-old Garland belt out a couple of musical numbers, one year before her star-making turn as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.)

The movie is comfort food. At a time when America was still climbing out of the Great Depression, the innocent contretemps of a scamp-ish adolescent was just the kind of reassuring, safe content that audiences wanted to see. The movie was a huge hit for MGM, the major studio that focused most intensely on producing family-friendly fare.

Andy’s simple and happy world is a construct of Americana, that yearning for an ideal environment in which no one goes hungry and no big issues are at stake. Other studios seeing MGM’s success, followed with similar content.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany.

 

 

NFR Project: 'Jezebel' (1938)

 

NFR Project: ‘Jezebel’

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Clements Ripley, Abem Finkel, John Huston

Pho: Ernest Haller

Ed: Warren Low

Premiere: March 10, 1938

103 min.

On the National Film Registry there are not only one but two excellent essays analyzing this film – one by Gabriel Miller, which you can read here, and one by Cary O’Dell, which you can read here.

I have little to add. This film was crafted for Bette Davis, who had just lost out on winning the role of Scarlett O’Hara in the looming production of Gone with the Wind. After winning Best Actress Oscar in 1935 for Dangerous, she was ready and eager to play a leading role in an A-list film. This film, with its similar themes and historical period, was released one year before Wind.

Movie starlets of the day were best known for their beautiful appearances and pleasant dispositions. Women’s roles in film were routinely slotted into the stereotypes of victim, temptress, or mother figure. It was Davis’ outstanding performance as the hard-bitten, terminally ill waitress in Of Human Bondage in 1934 that broke open the idea that actresses could play complex or, God forbid, negative characters. Davis’ broad range meant that she could be trusted with tackling challenging roles.

The film opens in New Orleans, 1852. Headstrong Southern belle Julie Marsden (Davis) acts without a care for what other people think, giving her a scandalous reputation. She is engaged to banker Pres Dillon (Henry Fonda just before his definitive role as Tom Joad in John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath), who desires nothing more than that she conform to social niceties. When she chooses to wear a red gown to a ball (unmarried women were expected to wear white), she shocks her fiancée and everyone else in society and is ostracized. Dillon breaks their engagement.

Julie sulks, then learns Pres is coming back after a year in the North. She prepares to capture his heart again, certain that he will forgive her, even donning the white dress she spurned a year earlier. She is devastated to find that Pres has married. She maintains a crusty courtesy towards the new couple, but soon schemes to have Pres get into a duel with another admirer, the pugnacious Buck Cantrell (George Brent). Her plans go awry and Buck is killed.

Then Pres comes down with yellow fever, which is decimating the region. Julie brings him to her home, tends him – and then volunteers to accompany him to Lazaret Island, where all dying of the plague were sent to die. This final act of self-sacrifice redeems her.

Davis was fearless. Though beautiful, she had no problem displaying ugly traits, which she is called upon to do in Jezebel. Wyler was an outstanding director, winner of three Best Director Oscars, who churned out hit after hit from the ‘30s through the ‘50s. He was capable of bringing out outstanding performances from his performers, and he guided Davis to another Best Actress Oscar for her role in this film. Wyler’s camera stays on Davis’ face repeatedly throughout the film, letting emotions and thoughts register in her subtly changing features. In one scene, she moves from glee to shock to despair and then acceptance, all without saying nary a word.

The film is sometimes viewed as a proto-feminist statement, as Julie pushes against the arbitrary social boundaries that hem her in as a woman. Still, she is acting in reaction to society, not freeing herself from it. She wants respectability and acceptance – on her own terms. And indeed, at film’s end she is supposedly redeemed by her self-sacrifice, she has recast herself as a martyr. As in many of the films of the period, the woman who rebels is marked for death.

Too, the film is ambivalent about the society Julie is raised in. Southern culture is portrayed as genteel and refined, but it is also obviously built on the back of slave labor (we see lots of happy “pickanninies” who sing and dance with childish enthusiasm – look close and you will see African American actors Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and Matthew “Stymie” Beard, the latter of Little Rascals fame, as obsequious servants). The painful depiction of simple-minded Black people is painful to behold.

There is some talk of the impending civil contest over slavery, and the Southerners are presented as essentially wrong-headed about the South’s superiority and durability. Julie is obviously in conflict with a society that we as viewers know is doomed. The progressivism and industrial might of the North will lead to its eventual victory over the self-assured sons of the South.

O’Dell in particular points out Wyler’s use of elements in repetition (Julie’s dresses, fire imagery) to advance the story. The director was unique in that he could find visual cues to undergird and reinforce the points her was trying to make. Wyler and Davis would work together again, earning her two more Oscars in the process.

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