NFR Project: 'Why We Fight' (1942-1945)

 

NFR Project: “Why We Fight”

Dir: Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak

Scr: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Anthony Veiller

Pho: Robert J. Flaherty

Ed: William Hornbeck

Distributed 1942-1945

417 min. (Seven films)

People today are unaware that most of the American population was for quite some time opposed to entering World War II. A strong strain of isolationism was felt across the country. Public sentiment changed, of course, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The United States swung into action with alacrity.

But many didn’t understand the “why” of fighting the war, including many new draftees and volunteers in the U.S. armed forces. Normally, as part of their training soldiers were given orientation lectures that covered this topic. However, General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, felt that film would be a far more effective tool of indoctrination.

To that end, he commissioned Oscar-winning director Frank Capra, who had joined the Army, to create a set of movies to be shown to soldiers to inform them as to the causes and objectives of the war. The result was Why We Fight, seven movies, each approximately an hour in length, that explained all this in clear and compelling terms.

Capra faced a dilemma. How would he create these films? It was decided to utilize a combination of documentary footage, animation, and staged narrative passages to present the government’s case for war. Armed with this footage, Capra and his crew were able to craft a compelling argument for involvement, almost entirely dependent on editing skill.

The film series started with “Prelude to War,” which contrasted the “free” and “slave” states of the world, decrying fascism and touting the American way. “The Nazis Strike” outlined Hitler’s rise to power and his conquest of neighboring states. “Divide and Conquer” covers the fall of France, while “The Battle Britain,” “The Ballad of Russia,” and “The Battle of China” all indict fascist aggression and outline the progress of the war to date. “War Comes to America,” the final film in the series, is a paean to the American spirit and way of life, and describes the change of the United States population from isolation to intervention.

The footage used ranged from captured enemy film, battle footage, map animations (crafted by Disney), narrative passages shot by Capra, and even snippets of fiction film (“The Battle of Russia” includes bits from Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky.) Capra did not shy away from showing the destruction and death caused by the would-be world's conquerors. Reviewing all the material and forging into a cohesive whole was a Herculean project, but Capra, a staunch patriot, managed to get the message across. In fact, these films, originally intended for use only by the armed forces, were released to the general public as well.

It's important to note that these are propaganda films. The filmmakers were out to advocate a specific point of view. To that end, some facts are fudged – Russia’s earlier entente with Hitler is omitted, and the problems of China’s would-be democratic government are glossed over. By and large, though, the story is an accurate account of how the U.S. found itself fighting for its existence against the German and Japanese military machines.

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

NFR Project: "Topaz" (1943-1945)

 

NFR Project: “Topaz”

Filmed by Dave Tasuno

Shot 1943-1945

84 min.

In case anyone is ever foolish enough to dispute it, these films prove that it happened.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Roosevelt designated all German, Italian, and Japanese nationals as enemy aliens. The onset of war made the general population uneasy – could these people be trusted? However, of the three ethnic groups, only the Japanese were subjected to imprisonment.

It was thought that Japanese-Americans would work for the success of the Japanese campaign against America. Doubting their loyalty, the government set up 10 “war relocation camps” in the interior of the continental United States. Between March and August of 1942, it forcibly exiled 120,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of them American citizens, to these concentration camps, where they remained until the end of war. Many lost their homes and businesses; all were impacted physically and psychologically by this incarceration.

One of the inmates, Dave Tasuno, was a home-movie buff. He took his camera with him to the Topaz camp in Utah, and surreptitiously took color, silent 8-millmeter films of life in the camp. The films are the kind of home movies you would expect – shots of birthdays, church services, scenes from everyday life, the documentation of youth groups. The only thing off about these films is the fact that they take place in the hot, dusty confines of the isolated camp. Living in barracks, under guard, the prisoners managed to maintain their dignity, integrity, and culture despite the conditions imposed on them.

It is remarkable to see this evidence of people trying to live normal lives under extraordinary circumstances. The inmates, released after the end of World War II, returned to their homes to rebuild their lives. Not until the present time, when immigrants are again being rounded up and jailed without the benefit of legal proceedings, has such an infamous procedure been imposed on people living in this country.

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

NFR Project: 'Stormy Weather' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Stormy Weather”

Dir: Andrew L. Stone

Scr: Jerry Horwin, Seymour B. Robinson, Frederick J. Jackson, H.S. Kraft

Pho: Leon Shamroy

Ed: James B. Clark

Premiere: July 21, 1943

78 min.

Man, this film tries so hard not to be racist. It fails: but it records some of the greatest performances by African-Americans captured with a camera.

It's an all-Black cast, an all-Black film made for Black people, presumably, by well-meaning white liberals. Still they stage a minstrel show in this film; its protagonist is forced to sit in a jungle tree pounding a drum. In a Caribbean number, he dances from conga-top to conga-top. Two Black comedians “black up” their faces to play an old comedy routine . . . Black people imitating the way white people imitate Black people.

All this is in support of the great dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who was still going strong at 65 when he made this movie. Robinson was one of the greatest dancers of the 20^th century, with a seemingly effortless elasticity that made him the personification of dancing grace. The film is a worthy tribute to his artistry, capturing him essaying all manner of styles. Including, unfortunately, the cakewalk, stereotypical dance of slaves.

Robinson seems to be holding his own as an actor in this effort; he is a dancer, not an actor. The film vaguely recasts Robinson’s own story as that of Bill Williamson, who Robinson portrays. He comes home after World War I (James Europe and Noble Sissle, jazz pioneers, are name-dropped here) and who lands humble jobs while he dreams on going on stage and dancing.

This he does with sidesick, sad-sack Gabe Tucker (Dooley Wilson). Meanwhile, he captures the heart of the fabulous Serena Rogers (Lena Horne), who sings the title song and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Diga Diga Doo.” And who else shows up? Fats Waller, for crying out loud! In one of his final appearances before his untimely death in December of the same year. He nails his signature tune, “Ain’t Misbehavin’”!

And then Cab Calloway shows up! And HE nails it! Katherine Dunham and her dancers do a number. Cab hits “Jumpin’ Jive,” and then . . . out come the Nicholas Brothers.

The Nicholas Brothers, Fayard (1914-2006) and Harold (1921-2000) were the best dancers ever captured on film. Bursting with energy, they negotiated the most outrageous of moves with assurance and finely honed technical skills. That the two can do the splits and recover, over and over again, makes the climax of their routine a kind of miraculous enactment of human achievement.

The film plays is straight; there is no minstrelry in the characterizations and dialogue. Still, Hollywood falls far short of equality here. So, what do you do?

You acknowledge the crap and reject it and you treasure select performances. The other all-Black film of the same year, Cabin in the Sky, had the same problems.

It's a great tribute to Bill Robinson, who was simply amazing. Progress of a sort was coming; people got to work and get paid, and got to see themselves on the big screen. But the same old white assumptions lurked underneath.

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

NFR Project: 'Shadow of a Doubt' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Shadow of a Doubt”

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

Scr: Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, Alma Reville; Story by Gordon McDonell

Pho: Joseph A. Valentine

Ed: Milton Carruth

Premiere: Jan. 12, 1943

108 min.

“Love and good order is no defense against evil.”

This is director Alfred Hitchcock describing the theme of this, his favorite film. The story of a murderous man and his young niece is subtly, deeply disturbing, a straight-up rejection of the normal veneer of everyday life. As such, it is one of Hitchcock’s most subversive films.

Hitchcock, renowned for his mystery and thriller films, chose to set his film in one of the most normal of small towns. The Newton family is shown as the most normal of families, consisting of mother (Patricia Collinge), father (Henry Travers), and three children, the oldest of which is the young lady “Charlie” (Teresa Wright). Into their lives steps the charming and moneyed mother’s younger brother, Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten).

He is on the run from the police, we know not why. He has gifts for the entire family, including a ring for Charlie that bears someone else’s initials on the band. Two men arrive in town, calling themselves journalists. They are determined to get a picture of Uncle Charlie, which they do by subterfuge. Eventually one of the men confides in young Charlie – they are on the track of the “Merry Widow Murderer,” a man who has made a career out of strangling and robbing wealthy widows. They suspect Uncle Charlie is their man.

Young Charlie, shocked, begins to discern clues that point to Uncle Charlie. One night at family dinner, Uncle Charlie goes on a tirade about the unworthiness of rich women to live. Young Charlie, upset, runs out of the house. Uncle Charlie follows her, drags her into a bar, and convinces her to say nothing. He admits that he is one of two suspects in the murders, but denies that he is the man the police are looking for. Young Charlie agrees to say nothing.

The other suspect is killed, and police scrutiny of Uncle Charlie relaxes. However, he begins to make attempts on young Charlie’s life – as she knows too much. Young Charlie threatens to kill him if he doesn’t leave town, and he agrees. He lures her into his train compartment as the train is leaving. He then grabs her and hauls her out onto the platform between cars, intending to throw her off the train to her death. At the last moment, she pivots and thrusts him off into the path of another train, killing him. Uncle Charlie is mourned by the community, and young Charlie determines to keep her knowledge of his crimes a secret.

Hitchcock utilized a brilliant script, written in part by the great American playwright Thornton Wilder. Uncle Charlie’s guilt is slowly revealed, and largely circumstantial . . . but young Charlie’s trepidation grows and grows, until she is forced to destroy him to save her own life. There is a theme of twinning here – the two Charlies share the same name, and it’s implied that there is a special connection between them, a connection almost incestuous. Uncle Charlie is the dark doppelganger of young Charlie – a beloved relative who also happens to be a depraved monster.

Meanwhile, the rest of the family, and the entire town, are completely oblivious to Uncle Charlie’s guilt, fooled by his charm and seduced by the big bankroll he brings to the local bank. He is a model of respectability, but actor Cotten gives Uncle Charlie an ever-so-faint air of menace, a sense that he is not quite right in the head – which only young Charlie can discern.

Throughout the film, even we in the audience are unsure whether Uncle Charlie is really a murderer, until literally the last minute of the film. The idea that evil can stalk the daylight peacefulness of a typical American town leaves the viewer with a feeling of helplessness and dread. If good old Uncle Charlie can be a murderer, who else is there around us who can conceal themselves under a veil of normalcy?

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

NFR Project: 'The Ox-Bow Incident' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “The Ox-Bow Incident”

Dir: William A. Wellman

Scr: Lamar Trotti

Pho: Arthur C. Miller

Ed: Allen McNeil

Premiere: May 21, 1943

75 min.

Westerns, for the first 40 or so years of their existence, were shoot-‘em-ups, adventures primarily for kids to watch. They featured a hero, a villain, a girl in danger. They consisted of chases on horseback, gunplay, fistfights. Good always triumphed in the end.

Then along came The Ox-Bow Incident, the first Western that could be dubbed adult, or psychological, or noir. It’s adapted from the 1940 novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Clark was noted for his ability to take the Western genre and infuse it with adult sensibilities, psychological complexities, and moral ambiguities. This film is faithful to the novel, dealing with issues of justice and morality while painting the West as not an escapist destination, but as a hard, cruel landscape populated by flawed characters.

In the movie, two saddle pals (Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan) ride into a Nevada town in 1885. They go to the local saloon and proceed to get drunk. Suddenly, a man rides in to town and announces that a local rancher has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The men of the town decide to form a posse and go after the perpetrators, despite the warnings of the kindly Mr. Davies (Harry Davenport). They are led by a self-righteous Army vet, Major Tetley (Frank Conroy).

The posse rides out, and is soon enveloped in darkness. Climbing up into the mountains, the lynch mob encounters three men camped out – a rancher (Dana Andrews), a Mexican (Anthony Quinn), and a befuddled old man (the reliable Francis Ford, brother of John). Based on circumstantial evidence, the posse decides that the three are guilty and are determined to string them up. Only seven men vote against the lynching; a sizable majority wants to kill the men.

Despite the men’s pleas that they are innocent, the hangings proceed. Almost immediately after, the sheriff rides up and announces that not only wasn’t the rancher killed, but that the real criminals were captured. Everyone is in shock, and they ride quietly back to town, where they all proceed to drink. Fonda reads the eloquent last letter of Andrews to his wife, and the two pals determine to seek her out and give her the news. They ride away down the dusty, empty street of the town.

Director William Wellman shoots most of the movie in near darkness. Light and shadow play across the faces of the characters as they debate, agonize, and anticipate the hangings. The mood of the film is grim and subdued; the posse’s bloodlust and disregard for the law is underlined. This gritty and uncompromising take on the Western confounded studio executives, but earned the film a Best Picture Oscar nomination. 

Many of Hollywood’s best character actors are on hand to fill out the ensemble, including the sinister Marc Lawrence as Farnley, the instigator, Jane Darwell as rancher “Ma” Grier, and Leigh Whipper as Sparks, an itinerant preacher. (Whipper was the first African-American to join Actors’ Equity; he plays a nuanced character not burdened by the stereotyped behavior that dogged Black actors at the time.)

The film is a tragedy, one that clearly delineates the causes of injustice and condemns “frontier justice” and the herd instinct that drives men to kill each other on nothing more than vague suspicions. This noir Western would inspire many more in the decades to come. The Western had finally grown up.

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

NFR Project: 'Meshes of the Afternoon' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Meshes of the Afternoon”

Dir: Maya Deren, Alexandr Hackenschmied

Scr: Maya Deren

Pho: Alexandr Hackenschmied

Ed: Maya Deren

Premiere: 1943

14 min.

There is a long alternate, dimly seen history of film – a hidden history of the avant-garde. Coming from Stan Brakhage’s old stomping grounds, I have sought out and been exposed to more of it than most. Still, I was unfamiliar with this proclaimed “classic” of American avant-garde cinema.

It’s a beautiful example of the subjective purposing of camera language, combined with a desire to impart a rhyming set of images that fix in the mind with forbidding clarity. It’s a poem, not a story, as such completely subverting the narrative drive that underlies all mainstream movies. Meshes is compelling to watch, but you don’t know why; it reaches something in your subconscious. Film in America had rarely staged dream and vision so effectively, with such economy of means.

Wife and husband Maya Deren, originally Eleonora Derenkovskaya, and Alexandr Hackenschmied, later Alexander Hammid, both emigres, created this film in their own (ironically, Hollywood) home; it is shot silently with a dreamy feel. A woman wanders through a house. She encounters a flower, a key, a knife, a telephone. The camera switches from subjective to (supposedly) objective without warning.

The woman pursues a garbed figure with a mirror for a face, also holding a flower – but breaks off, over and again. The woman sleeps, she dreams: she splits into multiples. The beautiful Deren, expressionless like a medieval Madonna, sees, and is observed. With mirrored balls for eyes, she stalks herself with a knife, striding now on the beach, then in a furrow, then in the grass, then onto a city sidewalk. This explosion is followed by the vision of a man seeing to woo her. The screen bursts open. Deren repeats actions, gestures, symbols, gestures, varying them slightly each time.

She ends up dead. Or is that a dream? What the hell is going on? The viewer has to supply their own answers as a set of confusing images are thrown at them.

The film resembles the early work of Cocteau, Man Ray, Leger, and others – but Deren, who asserted that hers was the lion’s share of the creative effort, denied having seen them. She creates her own unique filmed poetry, and it’s assured, and watchable. It inspires confusion and stimulates thought. At the same time.

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

 

 

NFR Project: 'Lassie Come Home' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Lassie Come Home”

Dir: Fred M. Wilcox

Scr: Hugo Butler

Pho: Leonard Smith

Ed: Ben Lewis

Premiere: Oct. 7, 1943

89 min.

Do you love dogs? I do. Growing up, the character of Lassie the collie was familiar to all of us due to several different TV shows that featured this canine hero.

It all started with this film, adapted from Eric Knight’s 1940 novel. In Yorkshire, an impoverished family is forced to sell their beloved dog Lassie to a Duke who raises dogs for sport and exhibition.

The problem is, Lassie loves her family and refuses to leave them. Several times she escapes, until she is transported all the way to Scotland. There she escapes again, and makes her laborious way on foot over hundreds of miles, encountering both hardships and kindness on her way.

The film features Roddy McDowall as her young master Joe, and Donald Crisp and Elsa Lancaster as his parents. The Duke is portrayed by the huffing and puffing Nigel Bruce, and his little granddaughter is played by Elizabeth Taylor. Along the way, Lassie interacts with solid character actors such as Dame Mae Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Napier, and Arthur Shields.

The film is simple and moving. We all want Lassie to come home! The intrepid Pal, a male collie who played Lassie, is intelligent and emotive, more so than many a human actor. The epic journey Lassie undergoes makes her a true champion, faithful and shall we say dogged? in her pursuit of home. This is a fun and exciting family classic that everyone in their right mind should love.

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

NFR Project: George Stevens' World War II footage (1943-1945)

 

NFR Project: George Stevens’ World War II footage

103 min.

George Stevens’ work is already well-represented in the National Film Registry. He started out making comedies, shooting them for Hal Roach. He was the Director of Photography for the Laural and Hardy’s Battle of the Century (1927) and Big Business (1929), as well as Max Davidson’s Pass the Gravy (1928).

He showed his versality by directing such disparate pictures as Swing Time (1936), Gunga Din (1939), and Woman of the Year (1942). When World War II broke out, Stevens enlisted in the Signal Corps, where he was appointed Major. General Eisenhower issued him orders -- it was his mission to assemble a team that would document the war in Europe. A motley crew dubbed “Stevens’ Irregulars” followed closely behind the men in the front lines, shooting a visual history of the war in a way never before achieved. It is a brutal indictment of those who provoked the destruction, death, and anguish that war imposes on the world.

The Special Coverage Unit group assembled 304 minutes of color footage, and 54 minutes of silent black-and-white footage. Stevens shot his own color home-movie 16-millimeter film as well. (You can find much of the footage here.) The intrepid gang of journalists went to North Africa, covered D-Day, the march across France, the liberation of Paris, the advance to reach the Russians at Torgau. The discovery of the concentration camp at Dachau. (This footage was used as evidence in the Nuremburg trials.) They showed us the trench where Hitler's body was incinerated. They ascended to Berchtesgaden.

There is some of the obligatory footage of generals interacting, of troops being reviewed. But they captured the misery and trauma all around them. Soldiers fought, lay wounded, were carted away dead. Civilians fled or suffered. Cities became heaps of brick-and-mortar caves of rubble. Prisoners wearily shuffled their way onto trucks. Concentration camp prisoners stumbled about in shock, or lay dead in heaps. It profoundly affected everyone involved in documenting it.

The filmmakers documented the Allied vision of World War II. It set down a true picture of populations at war, not romanticized, not prettied up. This sobering gathering of facts puts the lie to those who would claim that some of this never happened. Stevens turned to more serious fare upon his return from service, helming classics such as A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956), and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).

This collection of film contains moments of tragic beauty, long looks into the faces of the captured, even moments of absurdity -- a deranged man in a top hat swings a dead rabbit at American soldiers. Throughout, there is not the feeling of it being a propaganda project. Here is an impeccable record of humanity at war.

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

 

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Gang's All Here' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “The Gang’s All Here”

Dir: Busby Berkeley

Scr: Walter Bullock

Pho: Edward Cronjager

Ed: Ray Curtiss

Premiere: Dec. 24, 1943

103 min.

A really weak effort from the redoubtable Busby Berekeley. This Technicolor extravaganza is a musical that tells the story of a young soldier (James Ellison) who falls for singer Alice Faye. They are accompanied by stalwart players such as Eugene Pallette, Edward Everett Horton, Charlotte Greenwood, and Phil Baker.

The two young lovers are a tad star-crossed, but get together at the end in a flimsy and anemic plot that does little to hold the attention. The real star of the show is Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian bombshell whose outrageous outfits and comic style enliven the movie. She is featured in the “Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” number, in which chorus girls wave giant phallic bananas from the stage. Benny Goodman and his band are on hand, but they don’t help much.

Berkeley’s use of color is garish and over-the-top, but it’s all in the service of a very perfunctory project. A very ordinary outing, which begs the question: why was this film chosen for the National Film Registry?

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: George Stevens’ World War II footage.

NFR Project: 'Cabin in the Sky' (1943)

 

NFR Project: “Cabin in the Sky”

Dir: Vincente Minnelli

Scr: Marc Connelly, Lynn Root, Joseph Schrank

Pho: Sidney Wagner

Ed: Harold F. Kress

Premiere: April 9, 1943

98 min.

It is hard to believe that the NAACP signed off on this one. But they did. In fact, they congratulated the filmmakers on their project, stating it “avoided cliches and racial stereotypes.” Yet there is something condescending about this effort. It offers a simplified and hokey vision of the African-American experience.

True, it avoids the worst insults to Blacks that American cinema has imposed – no one acts like an idiot, everyone speaks normal English instead of slavish patois. But the film still treats them as simple-minded folk perpetually poised between the flames of Hell and the Kingdom of Heaven. It is this kind of neglect of reality that makes movies by and for Black people of the era, rare as they were, often fairy tales of damnation and salvation. It fits a very Caucasian-centric vision of Black life that can’t help but come off as tone deaf. It is well-intentioned but fundamentally inept. It wants to be Porgy and Bess (1935), but it isn’t.

The film is an adaptation of a 1940 Broadway production, with music by Vernon Duke, book by Lynn Root, and lyrics by John Tatouche. Ethel Waters killed as the heroine, Petunia; she debuted the hit song “Taking a Chance on Love” there. The powers that be decided to make a film of it, and they brought Waters in to reprise her stage role. (They threw in a few new songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg as well, including the great "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe".)

She is surrounded by some great performers – Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rex Ingram, Oscar Polk, Bill Bailey, Butterfly McQueen. Hell, there is Louis Armstrong, gleefully playing a little devil! And in the Paradise club, there reigns Duke Ellington and his orchestra. There are also some Black actors who purveyed Black stereotypes on film – Mantan Moreland, Willie Best. (Bill Bailey performs the first “moonwalk” on film as well.)

It’s the story of Little Joe (Anderson) and his wife Petunia (Waters). Little Joe is trying to reform, but he is lured into shooting dice and is seriously wounded by gambler Domino (“Bubbles” John W. Sublett). Lucifer Jr. (Ingram) fights the angelic General (Kenneth Spencer) for Joe’s soul. Joe gets six months to change his ways.

The Devil makes Joe win the lottery, after which he lives high on the hog and starts running around with the devilish Georgia Brown (a very young Lena Horne). Petunia shows up to a fancy nightclub to confront him, then she and Joe are shot down by Domino as a storm she prayed for destroys the club. Joe, redeemed by a repentant, dead Georgia Brown, is allowed into Heaven with Petunia.

After which, Little Joe wakes up – it was all a dream! He vows to mend his ways. Petunia is happy at last.

This was the first directorial effort of Vincente Minelli (Busby Berkeley stepped and directed the musical number “Shine”) – and some of Minelli’s trademarks are already here: the swooping dolly shots, the loving close-ups, the willingness to play with trick photography. It is admirably made, notwithstanding its fundamentally racist message. It proves that Hollywood could sell any kind of ideology that was fed it.

Waters is great as Petunia; Anderson is funny – and proves he can sing! Everyone does a stellar job with the material they were given. Nonetheless, this film was banned in many Southern states, which rejected the idea of a movie with Black performers in the lead roles. Today, Cabin in the Sky represents a tiny step forward and a big step sideways in the saga of Black culture in America.

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

NFR Project: 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

Dir: Michael Curtiz

Scr: Robert Buckner, Edmund Joseph

Pho: James Wong Howe

Ed: George Amy

Premiere: May 29, 1942

126 min.

Fun fact: does this film exist because someone called Jimmy Cagney a Communist?

Evidently, yes. According to Patrick McGillican in his Cagney: The Actor as Auteur, in 1940 Cagney and 15 others were named as Communists by the supposed American Communist chief John R. Leech. Cagney was cleared, but a publicity corrective was needed. His brother, producer William, reportedly said, “We're going to have to make the goddamndest patriotic picture that's ever been made. I think it's the Cohan story”. (Cagney was hostile to George M. Cohan – the grandly successful Broadway actor, playwright, composer, lyricist, producer [1878-1942] -- who had famously sided with management during the pivotal Actors’ Equity strike of 1919.)

The resulting film is perhaps Hollywood’s most patriotic film, but it is largely fantasy. Even at the time of its release, critics called it out for its numerous factual inaccuracies. Cohan himself was dying at the time of its making, and it is said that this was a film of his life as he had wanted it to be. It is the rosy, high-stepping story of an indomitable entertainer who loved his country. (Having Michael Curtiz direct and James Wong Howe as cinematographer increases by considerable odds the success of your film project.)

Cohan did start off as a boy performer with his family; here his egotism loses the family jobs until he learns his lesson and gets a spanking. (Warning: there is a brief scene of the Four Cohans in blackface. Racism was still casual in Movieland.) Nonetheless, he grows up into Cagney and, in that incarnation, he is compulsively watchable. Cagney’s natural go-get-it spirit and easy familiarity with the camera make him a magnetizing Cohan.

Cohan is blackballed for his arrogant behavior. He struggles, plugging his songs. He falls in love with and marries Mary (an amalgam of Cohan’s two wives). He makes a pitch for his musical, 1904’s Little Johnny Jones, containing the smash hit “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. Finally a success, his shows proliferate on Broadway.

A producer in the film summarizes his appeal to audiences of the day: “He's the most original thing on Broadway. You know why? Because he's the whole darn country, squeezed into one pair of pants. His writing, his songs, why even his walk and his talk. They all touch something way down here in people. Don't ask me why it is, but it happens every time the curtain goes up. It's pure magic. . ."

“I know his formula," responds a haughty singer. “A fresh young sprout gets rich between 8:30 and 11:00 p.m.”

“Yes,” says the producer. “George M. Cohan has invented the success story, and every American loves it because it happens to be his own private dream. He's found the mainspring in the antique clock. Ambition, pride, patriotism. That's why they call him the Yankee Doodle Boy.”

“Critics said musicals and cheap comedies were all I could write," says Cagney in voiceover. “I'd wave a flag, they said. Nothing else.” He writes “Mary” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Over There.”

And oh what musical numbers are conceived and carried off here! The camera captures the thrill in these performances, led by Cagney’s impeccable half-singing, half-chanting vocals and expert dancing in the stiff-legged style of Cohan himself. (Cagney won Best Actor for this uncharacteristic role, and proved himself an old song-and-dance man at heart.) Eventually, the camera moves into the action and the stage dissolves and we get epic stretches of tuneful patriotic fervor. The choruses of military men, brass bands, and general flag-waving is very stirring – just what America wanted to see at the beginning of its involvement in a world war the outcome of which was not yet certain. America is portrayed are the epitome of mankind’s hopes – as indeed, at the time it was, aspirationally.

He retires, he returns to the stage in an F.D.R. impression in the musical I’d Rather Be Right (1937).

The framing story of this narrative is that Cohan is summoned to the White House by Roosevelt himself. Cohan thinks he’s in trouble for making fun of the President, and he nervously narrates this smoothly-flowing stream of reminiscence of his life. In the end, F.D.R. awards him a Gold Medal from the American people “because of his ability to instill in the hearts of the growing citizenry a loyal and patriotic spirit for their country and what it stands for in the eyes of the world.” 

Cagney says, "I wouldn't worry about this country, if I were you. We got this thing licked. Where else in the world can a plain guy like me come in and talk things over with the head man?"

Roosevelt replies, "That's about as good a definition of America that I ever heard."

Cagney gratefully accepts the medal and descends the majestic staircase of the White House. As he walks down, he gently segues into a cheerful little tap routine. Supposedly, Cagney threw this bit in off the cuff; it is a perfect evocation of the character. Cagney deserved his Oscar.

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

NFR Project: 'Woman of the Year' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Woman of the Year”

Dir: George Stevens

Scr: Ring Lardner, Jr., Michael Kanin

Pho: Joseph Ruttenberg

Ed: Frank Sullivan

Premiere: Feb. 19, 1942

114 min.

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn were both respected actors when they collaborated for the first time on this film. The chemistry they generated was amazing, and it enlivened the next eight films they made together. Their real-life romance comes to life on screen in Woman of the Year.

The idea for the movie came from writer Garson Kanin, who passed off writing responsibilities to his brother Michael when he joined the armed services during World War II. The premise is based on the reputation of the formidable journalist of the day Dorothy Thompson, who seemed to go everywhere, cover everything, and make informed pronouncements about it to the nation. What would it be like to have a relationship with her?

Tracy was solid, imperturbable, wry, confident. Hepburn was quick, lively, witty, intelligent. On and off the screen, they fell in love. This was complicated largely by Tracy’s marriage, which he refused to leave. They were as together as they could be until Tracy’s death in 1967.

Here, Sam Craig (Tracy) is a sports columnist for the fictional newspaper the New York Chronicle. He gets into a spat with the paper’s political affairs correspondent Tess Harding (Hepburn). They clash, then discover a mutual fascination for each other. Hurriedly, they wed – and Sam discovers that he is just a footnote in Tess’s busy career. He puts up with it for as long as he can, but after an escalating number of castrating events, he declares he is ready to give up on the marriage.

Tess, seeing her father wed her aunt in a beautiful and touching ceremony, determines to make things right with Sam. She returns home and tries to make him breakfast, a task she is not up to. Sam observes her, and goes to her, claiming that he does not want to either be ignored or waited on. He wants a marriage of equals, and Tess agrees.

It is quite obvious from the way Tracy and Hepburn regard each other that they are falling in love on screen. Each of them is witty and engaging, and their comic timing together is perfect. This is a naturalistic film, and both actors play the comedy with a great sense of minimalism and detail. George Stevens was a fine director; here, he leans on two-shots and close-ups, letting the leads take up the screen with their memorable, expressive faces. The script is filled with taut gags (“You read Chinese? Fluently!”)

Tracy’s Sam is grumpy but human. When Tracy is told he must wait outside Hepburn’s office, his features flash into outright anger for a moment, and then relax into a more charitable arrangement in a disarming facial expression. Hepburn bats her lashes and leans in to her conversations with Tracy, fascinated and fascinating at the same time.

The film’s ending was changed after previews. Instead of the breakfast scene in the finished ending, the original conclusion had Tess interfering in Sam’s prizefighting coverage. It seems that Hepburn’s character had to be punished for her presumptuousness, and the breakfast scene takes her down a peg.

The film was wildly successful, and prompted the numerous co-starrings the two engaged in through the next two decades. This is subtle comedy for the emotionally mature.

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

NFR Project: 'Tulips Shall Grow' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Tulips Shall Grow”

Dir: George Pal

Scr: Cecil Beard, George Pal, Jack Miller

Pho: George Pal

Premiere: June 26, 1942

7 min.

The film marks the bursting on to the scene of animator George Pal. Pal was born in Hungary, started off as an architect, and moved into the profession of animation. He was so talented he was made the head of Germany’s UFA studio’s animation department. However, the rise of Hitler caused him to move to Holland. He continued his career there, but then, again to escape the Nazis, he and his wife relocated to America.

He found work in animation at Paramount, and there crafted his unique take on stop-motion animation – replacement animation. Instead of posing flexible figures, Pal would create new puppets or parts of puppets to shoot one frame at a time, allowing him more flexibility with the images produced.

Here, he tells the story of two Netherlanders – Jan and Janette. They live in windmills, and play music and dance happily amid fields of tulips. Suddenly, over the horizon comes an army of “screwballs” – mechanical figures that are obvious stand-ins for Nazis. The Screwballs lay waste to the countryside, and Jan and Janette are separated.

Jan winds up praying and crying inside a ruined church. His prayers seem to be answered when a powerful rainstorm lashes down, destroying the enemy’s planes and tanks and rusting all the invaders until they disintegrate. Then Jan finds Janette, and they resume their happy lives. The windmills reconstitute themselves, and the tulips grow again.

Pal’s techniques would hold him in good stead for decades to come, during which he would help create such classic sci-fi films as When Worlds Collide (1951) and The Time Machine (1960).

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

 

 

NFR Project: 'To Be or Not to Be' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “To Be or Not to Be”

Dir: Ernst Lubitsch

Scr: Edwin Justis Mayer

Pho: Rudolph Mate

Ed: Dorothy Spencer

Premiere: March 6, 1942

99 min.

Is Hitler funny? Chaplin thought so, and he mocked him in his The Great Dictator (1940). The great comedic director Ernst Lubitsch thought so too, although many disagreed with him.

Lubitsch said, “What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation. It can be argued if the tragedy of Poland realistically portrayed in To Be or Not to Be can be merged with satire. I believe it can be and so do the audience which I observed during a screening of To Be or Not to Be, but this is a matter of debate and everyone is entitled to his point of view.”

To Be or Not to Be has grown in reputation over the years. The combination of political thriller and wicked satire was jarring for most audiences of the day, leaving them uncertain as to whether to laugh or not.

The film takes place in Warsaw at the beginning of World War II. A theater troupe wants to put on a play called Gestapo, but the local censors ban its performance. The leading actor of the theater, Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), is a vain ham who fears his actress wife (Carole Lombard) is cheating on him. A handsome young flier (Robert Stack) leaves the theater when Tura starts his “To be or not to be” speech from Hamlet and visits Lombard backstage.

The Nazis invade Poland, and Stack goes to England to serve in the allied air force. The theater people plod on glumly.

In London, a supposed resistance leader, Dr. Siletsky, volunteers to take messages from the Polish fliers to their families. In reality, he is a double agent who plans to turn over the fliers’ information to the Nazis. Stack is sent back to Warsaw to intercept and assassinate Siletsky, and stop the flow of information to the Gestapo. Tura agrees to help the resistance stop Siletsky.

The performers trick Siletsky into giving the list of names and addresses to them. Tura plays a Nazi, Colonel Ehrhardt. “So, they call me ‘Concentration Camp Ehrhart’?” he chuckles in character. Siletsky quickly gets wise and tries to escape, but is shot dead. Tura must now impersonate Siletsky in order to get his hands on a duplicate copy of the information.

Tura as Siletsky meets with the real Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Rumann). “So they call me ‘Concentration Camp Ehrhardt’, eh?” he chuckles. “I thought you’d react that way,” says Tura. Unfortunately, the real Siletsky’s body is found, and Tura’s deception is discovered. He is locked in a room with Siletsky’s dead body – the Nazis hope he will crack. Instead, Tura shaves off Siletsky’s beard and replaces it with a false one, pulling it off in front of the Nazis to prove that he is the real Siletsky. Suddenly, his acting troupe, all dressed up as Nazis, break into Gestapo headquarters and reveal that he is an imposter, taking him into “custody.”

Now the troupe must escape. Using an actor disguised as Hitler (“Heil myself,” he says at one point) they bluff their way to a waiting plane and make their way out of Poland.

The Nazis are stupid, the actors are self-indulgent, and no one gets off unscathed in this movie. Of particular interest is Jack Benny’s performance. The radio comedian was not known for his film performances, but Lubitsch thought Benny’s egotistical, brittle persona was perfect for Tura. Benny later reported that Lubitsch said, “You think you are a comedian. You are not a comedian . . . you are fooling the public for thirty years. You are fooling even yourself. A clown, he is a performer what is doing funny things. A comedian, he is a comedian what is saying funny things. But you, Jack, you are an actor, you are an actor playing the part of a comedian and this you are doing very well.”

The film is also notable for the fact that it was the last performance of Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after filming wrapped. Her cool delivery in a supporting role is a worthy monument to her genuine comedic genius.

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

NFR Project: 'Road to Morocco' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Road to Morocco”

Dir: David Butler

Scr: Frank Butler, Don Hartman

Pho: William C. Mellor

Ed: Irene Morra

Premiere: Nov. 10, 1942

83 min.

First of all, read Richard Zoglin’s excellent essay on this film at the Library of Congress website.

For me, the central conceit of the Hope/Crosby “Road” films is that it is all, after all, just a movie. The comedy duo takes nothing seriously, mysteriously gifted with the sense that all that defines their existence is their proclivity to crack jokes about whatever situation they are in.

Now, for 1942, this attitude was refreshing. People were tired of realism; finding themselves at war was surely a part of it. A film that tells this kind of tale is looking to distract you, to pick your comedy pocket while it does its sleight of hand. It is not so much a film as it is the performance of the making of a film, a post-modernist kind of entertainment that congratulates us for being in on the gag. We know that, for them, this is all just another gig.

The chemistry of smooth crooner Bing Crosby and fast-talking comic Bob Hope was exceptional. The deadpan of Crosby paired with the manic mugging of Hope was a perfect repartee-barbed volleyball game. Their dialogue developed, loose and informal, like a jazz improvisation. Between the age of Laurel and Hardy and the age of Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby were moviedom’s comedy kings, and their relaxed, sometimes smarmy “Is this thing on?” sensibility was much imitated by all manner of comedians.

The two made seven Road pictures in all, between 1940 and 1962. This is the third and the most successful. As usual, Crosby is the smart schemer with the beautiful voice, and Hope is the cowardly, inane schpritzer, letting loose a torrent of clowning that sometimes makes Crosby look comatose. It was a formula that worked.

Crosby is Jeff Peters, and Hope is his idiot cousin Orville “Turkey” Jackson. They are adrift upon the ocean, victim of Orville’s idiocy with matches. They land in a desert country and fall in with Arabians; chiefly, their princess (the ever-lovely Dorothy Lamour). Crosby sells Hope as a slave, but finds that Hope is in the lap of the princess, prepared to be her (doomed) husband.

Hope is resigned to die at the hands of the stone-faced Kasim (Anthony Quinn!). They crack wise through being abducted, abandoned in the desert, then chased by bandits, all while Crosby gets the girl. They sabotage the meeting of the sheiks, allowing them to escape. (Crosby dumps gunpowder into a batch of hand-rolled cigarettes; Hope opines, “What are you making, reefers?”)

Two camels with animated eyes and mouths discuss the proceedings. “When I see how silly people behave, I’m glad I’m a camel,” says one. “Oh, I’m glad you’re a camel too, Mabel!” says the other, his eyes rolling lasciviously. 

Somewhere in there, Der Bingle sings that great hit song, “Moonlight Becomes You” (Jimmy Van Heusen/Johnny Burke).

It’s a film that goes at the pace of a gag a minute. It’s got a little of everything in it, and nothing is taken seriously (except by Anthony Quinn).

It’s hokey, it’s corny, it’s vaguely racist. We are living in the land of comic stereotypes. It’s just what a stressed-out WWII-era audience found to be entertaining. If you dig Crosby, or you like Hope, or both, then this film is right up your alley. If you’re not into their pre-hipster banter then this film will be a irritant.

Hope and Crosby were not friendly in real life, and the put-downs they trade have some of that emotional juice to them. They were pros going through their paces.

But they made it look easy; they made it look as though they were in it just for kicks.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: To Be or Not to Be.

 

 

NFR Project: 'Now, Voyager' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Now, Voyager”

Dir: Irving Rapper

Scr: Casey Robinson

Pho: Sol Polito

Ed: Warren Low

Premiere: Oct. 22, 1942

117 min.

It’s the most romantic film you could possibly hope for. It’s a woman’s film, but remarkably it’s not about a woman’s relationship with a man; it’s about a woman establishing herself as an independent, integrated personality.

Most “women’s pictures” revolved around a woman’s relationship with a man, for better or worse. Instead, Now, Voyager is about the central character’s liberation from a repressed personality to a free-willed, confident member of society. Containing a revelatory performance from Bette Davis, the movie speaks to the possibility of freeing oneself from negative, destructive patterns into a life marked by inner peace and contentment, a remarkable statement for its time.

Davis is Charlotte Vale, a wealthy Bostonian, a dowdy, subdued, and overweight young woman dominated by her controlling bitch of a mother (Gladys Cooper). She lives quietly in her room until she is treated by the psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who takes her into his care and teaches her how to think, and live, for herself. Almost magically, Charlotte drops some weight and restyles herself into a beautiful swan of a human being.

Jaquith sends her on an ocean cruise to avoid her mother undoing all the work she has done. There she meets Jerry (Paul Henreid), a dashing architect who happens to be trapped in a loveless marriage. The two fall in love, but realize they cannot be together. In a grand romantic gesture, Jerry lights two cigarettes at once and hands one to her – an iconic move repeated throughout the film. (Max Steiner’s lush score underpinning every significant moment, is magnificent.)

Charlotte returns home, and handles her mother handily. (She lights a fire in her home’s long-unused fireplace, symbolically relighting her spirit. She wears camellias, a reminder of her romance with Jerry.) Charlotte gets engaged to a fellow high-society member, but cancels the engagement when she reaizes she still loves Jerry. She tells her mother, who verbally abuses her. Charlotte stands up for herself and it literally kills her mother!

She returns to Dr. Jaquith’s sanitarium, and there meets Tina, the alienated daughter of Jerry and his wife. She befriends her, becoming a second mother to her. Jerry finds out, and wants to relieve Charlotte of the burden of caring for Tina. But Charlotte refuses, insisting that, even though they can’t be together, they can share in the upbringing of Tina. “Oh, Jerry,” she says, “let’s not ask for the moon; we have the stars!”

Davis gives bravura performance as an ugly duckling who transforms into a healthy and sane person. She learns how to overcome her feelings of inferiority, asserting herself and charting her own path in life. (Of course, being a millionaire helps; her gowns are gorgeous.) Now, Voyager is a paean to self-realization.

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

NFR Project: 'Mrs. Miniver' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Mrs. Miniver”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West

Pho: Joseph Ruttenberg

Ed: Harold F. Kress

Premiere: June 4, 1942

133 min.

It won Best Picture, Best Director for William Wyler, Best Actress for Greer Garson, Best Supporting Actress for Teresa Wright. Walter Pidgeon was nominated for Best Actor; Henry Travers was nominated for Best Supporting Actor his impersonation of the kindly, rose-growing stationmaster, Mr. Ballard.

It is a propaganda film. As Orwell wrote, “All art is propaganda. On the other hand, not all propaganda is art.” It is a great propaganda film; it makes you want to take up arms and march out into the streets. It is a fair evocation of the struggles suffered by the English people during World War II.

Mrs. Miniver (Garson) is a lovely, kind, and intelligent citizen/goddess whose husband Clem (Pidgeon) is a bluff, pipe-smoking kind of guy. They have three children. Their eldest son (Richard Ney) is a cheeky lad who falls for the rich girl in the estate next door, Carol (Wright), and rapidly goes off to war. Privations increase. The family holds up, impeccably dressed. (If one is going to be bombed, one wishes to dress well for it.)

We are given their vital statistics: they live in a village outside London; they are typical folk; he’s a professional, an architect in fact. The results of the war on his home are testament to the havoc wrought by Nazi bombings, night after night in those early and crucial opening months of the War. Wyler astutely gets his actors to underplay, engaging the viewer’s sympathies. His characters are lit from within.

Clem is called upon to be part of the Dunkirk flotilla; Mrs. M faces down a Nazi who’s parachuted into her garden. The bombings decimate their home as they huddle in their back yard’s improvised bomb shelter. Tragedy strikes. Throughout, director Wyler quietly focuses us on the faces of the Minivers as they negotiate an uneasy path among the horrors of war.

It was a message England desperately wanted to articulate for American audiences; the result is a faithful recreation of a critical time in a nation’s life, and an articulation of the values that distinguished it from its enemies.

Wyler knows that the drama sells itself, and focuses instead on moments of pain alternating with twinges of hope; he articulates the kind of calm and confidence that is the most vital ally in a nation is distress.

It ends with Henry Wilcoxson as the Vicar saying from the ruined pulpit,

“The homes of many of us have been destroyed, and the lives of young and old have been taken. There is scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart. And why? Surely you must have asked yourself this question. Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness. Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed? I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is a war of the people, of all the people, and it must be fought not only on the battlefield, but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home, and in the heart of every man, woman, and child who loves freedom! Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves and those who come after us from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down. This is the people's war! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right!”

And then everyone sings, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” A categorical imperative. We are convinced that the cause is just (especially with a grim encounter with one of the Nazis’ finest – a sinister Helmut Dantine) because we empathize with this stereotypical clutch of stiff-upper-lip, no-nonsense civilian-saints whose sufferings transform them into holy soldiers.

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

NFR Project: 'The Magnificent Ambersons' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “The Magnificent Ambersons”

Dir: Orson Welles

Scr: Orson Welles

Pho: Stanley Cortez

Ed: Robert Wise

Premiere: July 10, 1942

88 min.

This is a famously mutilated masterpiece. It’s not alone: other noted films marred by missing footage include von Stroheim’s Greed (1924), Browning’s London After Midnight (1927), and Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937). But Ambersons was plagued by a seemingly avoidable series of ill-advised edits and reshoots, initiated by the studio against the wishes of its writer and director, that destroyed the last third of the film and supposedly imposed a fake, happy Hollywood ending on it.

In other words, it’s the classic romantic tragedy of American culture, one of those times when wallets outbid hearts and a creative genius was stymied. It marks the point after which Welles had to struggle to get projects made, an increasingly severe drawback that seemingly drove him to self-destruction. This production turned into a nightmare.

What’s there is brilliant, an American horror story, in which an idiotic young man triggers the loss of his soul as well as his fortune, changing from a prince of post-Civil War upper-crust society into a wounded and tormented manual laborer. Welles understatedly characterized the effort as “downbeat.” It is founded in a literal horror of capitalism, the idea of losing it all.

The players include various of Welles’ ensemble, the Mercury Players – Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead. They are expert. Peculiarly, they are vulnerable and grand, confused and tragically certain, insistent on bending the world to their will until life defeats them. A classic American anti-success story.

We open late in the 19^th century. The Ambersons reside in the highest estimation of the townsfolk of the small city of the Midwest of America, as they are its wealthiest and most successful family. They live in a magnificent mansion (its confines would be later used in the Val Lewton horror films). The house is a character unto itself; its profuse abundance of set pieces, art works, and elaborate furniture set the Ambersons as an encumbered, materialistic result of what would naturally result no matter who was in their place.

The cruelties of American speculation kill them off and they deserve it; they have forgotten how to thrive in adverse circumstances. All the characters erode during the course of the movie; they are ground down by life. Nobody comes out unscathed. A staggering admission about a society for which you’re supposed to be making escapist, popular entertainment.

Its patriarch is industrialist Major Amberson (Richard Bennett), who served in the Civil War. His daughter Isabel (Dolores Costello) marries Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway); their son George (Tim Holt) is a spoiled brat, a dolt who counts on his money to make everything right.

Wilbur makes a string of bad investments, and inconveniently dies. Inventor and automobile pioneer Eugene (Joseph Cotten), new-made millionaire and a former suitor of Isabel’s, returns to town and woos her. Simultaneously, Eugene’s wonderful daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) is both attracted to and critical of George.

Eugene and Isabel fall in love; George furiously forces them to part, making his mother take him on a trip around the world. His mother gives in to him, and destroys her happiness and her health. She comes home to die; Eugene barges in, demanding to see her, he is too late.

Throughout, Welles and cinematographer Stanley Cortez’s vision is deeply focused, smoothly flowing, delicate and voluptuous, capable of creating timeless images while advancing the plot. The Amberson’s lighting is dark and moody. We are presented initially, with corny glee, the absurdities of the changes in fashion, as we are given as a comic preview of the havoc the changes of destiny that overwhelm and destroy the characters in front of us.

(Bernard Herrmann's score, what there is of it, is excellent; the studio took out over half of it and the composer angrily ripped his name from the credits.)

The family falls apart. Agnes Moorehead, fresh from playing Kane’s mother in Citizen Kane, here plays Fanny, Wilbur’s sister and aunt of George. In a performance etched in acid, she goes from a coltish young lady to a mad woman. She loses everything. She ends up crouching in the darkness, up against a disconnected boiler, crying and undone. It’s one the best performances put on film. Watch her when she’s on the screen; she is really completely in the moment, uniquely and dynamically there even when stock-still. When Isabel dies, she seizes George and whispers into the night, “She loved you!” She looks up, and it’s a supplication, and fervor, and heartbreak.

The city grows. It grows dirty and dark and crowded around the Amberson mansion. The city rises; and the Ambersons become irrelevant. George and Fanny must go and live in a boardinghouse. George wants to study to be lawyer, but he can’t earn enough while doing it. He goes to work in an explosives factory.

It is simultaneously a grieving for that unique and signal American dread: the loss of fortune. The most heinous of sins: thou shalt not be poor. Financial insufficiency sits its victim in despair. Bankuptcy begs the mercy of forgetting. The family shatters, and time passes, and things change, and we see landmarks obliterated and memory fail. The family passes from a unified, exemplary pinnacle to a fragmented sliver of survivors, not exactly a wholesome message at the time for a country at war.

At the point where George gets to his knees and prays at his dead mother’s bedside during his last night in the mansion, Welles’ film held true to his original vision. We quickly see that, ironically, George has been run over by a car and has broken both his legs. After this point, two clunky scenes are obviously reshoots – the first with Cotten and Baxter, and then Cotten with Moorehead – resolving all the plot points neatly and bringing us to a close. Lucy goes to the hospital with Eugene and reconciles with George. Eugene will take care of George and Fanny.

Is this what Welles wanted? Is it congruent with the end of book? It is interesting to note that Welles’ Mercury Theatre produced a radio version of the story on The Campbell Playhouse on Oct. 29, 1939, a full three years before the film was made. Walter Huston played Eugene, and Welles played George. Its ending suggests a reconciliation in the hospital as well; it simply must have developed more organically on film, accounting for the loss of a reputed 40 minutes of footage.

It's not just a history lesson. The content is dark, twisted material. A young man’s unresolved complex about his mother leads to her death. He spends himself into penury. He is ignorant and savagely unpleasant, yet he is reconciled at film’s end and is guaranteed salvation from the consequences of his actions. The ending negates what has come before; George is saved by the deus ex machina, the god of the machine that floats down and makes everything all right at the end. Perhaps this miraculous deliverance is ironic, as it was at the end of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera (1928).

So you have three-quarters of a profound examination of the destruction of an American family . . . then it goes a bit south.

Can we see the rest of the movie? Can we recreate that missing 40 minutes of footage and reintegrate into what was organically Welles’ intention? It has been announced that, using AI, there will be an attempt to complete the film. The outfit Show Runner, in consultation with Brian Rose, who has spent five years gathering documentation as to how the film should end, intends to recreate it. They estimate it will take two years. Will it pan out? Can we reach back into the past and fill in holes? Should we? Can we not accept it for its tattered self?

What is there demonstrates a maturity of vision that was profoundly deeper than what passed for show in Hollywood. It was a revolutionary synthesis of vision and sound, of performance and setting. IF Welles had seen it through, would he have nailed it, or muffed it? Welles had the goods; like George in the film, oddly, he is a victim only of fate and of his worst tendencies. His unnecessarily limited output was always brave and challenging.

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

NFR Project: 'Jam Session' (1942)

 

NFR Project: ‘Jam Session’ (1942)

Dir: Josef Berne

Premiered 1942

3 min.

They were the first music videos. Known as “Soundies,” for a brief period they had a unique appeal to customers in bars, pool rooms, restaurants, and the like. Filmed musical c by a variety of entertainers were collected in a kind of visual jukebox – put in a dime, see and hear the artist.

First, you should read Mark Cantor’s comprehensive essay on the subject on the Library of Congress website. It says in part:

“The individual, three-minute films were ultimately produced by close to fifty separate concerns . . . Those who purchased a Panoram machine . . . received eight musical shorts each week, or nine during the war years, when a propaganda piece was added. There were more than 1,850 shorts released over a period of six years, and ‘Jam Session,’ featuring Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, was one of the best.”

There’s not too much more to add. The soundie in question takes place in a “joint” where the Duke and his men are tossing off a rendition of “C Jam Blues” with seeming effortlessness. Their relaxed, happy demeanor sets off their sharp professionalism. As each soloist takes his turn with the tune, the Duke grins and beats time on the piano.

Duke Ellington faced the same kind of racial discrimination as other Black artists did. The thing about the Duke was, he transcended it. He maintained a calm and genially commanding presence on stage, and it created a kind of safe space for those working with him. His beaming face and closing wink to the camera are priceless.

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

NFR Project: 'Cat People' (1942)

 

Holy cow! I was looking for my notes on this movie when I found this piece on Cat People that I wrote for that great Australian film site, Senses of Cinema, almost 20 years ago. To see it in its original configuration click here.

Cat People

Dir: Jacques Tourneur 

Scr: DeWitt Bodeen 

Phot: Nicholas Musuraca 

Ed: Mark Robson 

Premiered Dec. 25, 1942

73 min.

When the completed Cat People was first screened for RKO president Charles Koerner in the autumn of 1942, he wouldn’t speak to producer Val Lewton or director Jacques Tourneur, “then left in a hurry” (1). Critics were not bowled over by it, either – and then it took off with audiences, grossing an estimated $4,000,000, and saving a studio left seriously in the red by the indulgence of Orson Welles’ expensive but unprofitable masterpieces Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

This success paved the way, for better and worse, for the rest of legendary producer Lewton’s career. Of the 14 films he guided into being before his premature death in 1951, nine were, ostensibly, “B” horror flicks. However, he and his creative teams invested these modest projects with a style and resonance that have distinguished them in the genre. To this day, Lewton is one of the few film producers who have left a body of stylistically coherent work.

The Russian-born Lewton (anglicised from Leventon) was a voluminous reader and compulsive performer – his aunt, Adelaide, became one of the early 20^th century’s most celebrated actresses and flamboyant personalities, under the name of Alla Nazimova. He cranked out a number of novels, some a bit unsavory, before finagling his way into a job as what is variously described as editorial assistant to or story editor for producer David O. Selznick.

In 1942, he took on the responsibility and challenge of helming a low-budget production unit at RKO. His task: to create a series of inexpensive and successful horror features. He achieved this, in spades.

He impressed his first effort with his own personality. An outwardly affable man, Lewton suffered from bouts of anxiety, hostility to authority figures, and a number of phobias – including, most significantly, an aversion to be being touched and a terror of cats. These obsessions coalesced into the thematic centre of Cat People.

The film can be dissected according to any number of theoretical approaches, and, as such, is a bit of catnip for intellectuals. Its incredible popularity at the time can probably be ascribed to its forthright discussion of sexual feeling – and its seeming demonization of the same. The brief shot of water glistening on the heroine’s naked back as she crouches, sobbing, after a kill, is one of the more disturbing moments in 1940s film. But the armchair Freudianism underneath the film’s most wearisome bouts of imagery (doors, keys, swords) has long ago lost its punch.

More persuasive is Dana B. Polan’s assertion that “Cat People is a tragedy about a world’s inability to accept, or even attempt to understand, whatever falls outside its defining frames” (2). The doomed Irena’s struggle owes a great deal to The Wolf Man (directed by George Waggner and scripted by Curt Siodmak) from the previous year – particularly the cursed protagonist, who struggles to warn those who scoff around him (Siodmak was on board for Lewton’s next film, 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie).

In Irena’s case, the burden of proof increases exponentially, due to her sex. The completely unacceptable source of her transformative power, and the ease with which she is dismissed, insulted and preyed upon, mark important points, culturally, for pre-feminist America.

Her dark warmth is no match for the wooden, obvious, two-dimensional characters by which she is surrounded. Her strange tales are not even discomforting, and are easily pooh-poohed. Even when she returns to her estranged husband, Oliver, ready to engage with him sexually, he blandly informs her that it is too late, and leaves her to ominously rip the fabric of the couch she sits on.

Irena’s otherness only reaches those she kills or nearly kills. The film’s most unbelievable moment is also its most visually impressive – a drafting room, lit at night only by beams shining up from the now-antiquated “light tables” used by design firms, in which crouch and cower Oliver and the “regular gal” he is friends with at work (and turns to when his marriage is stymied), the two of them stalked by Irena in the form of a black panther.

As Oliver lifts a T-square and (none-too-convincingly, thanks to actor Kent Smith) sings out, “In the name of God, Irena, leave us in peace!” Cat People reaches a kind of nutty transcendence. Shadows are flung upward, a pragmatic tool is pressed into supernatural service, and a beast relents.

Another, more disturbing idea is that Lewton is playing out his fears and shortcomings. Irena, like Lewton, who devised the plot, is the personification of passive/aggressive. The only way she can convince she is dangerous is by allowing her animal self to be aroused. Her aversion to touch is, in this sense, a protective move. Meanwhile, she is full of stories, secrets, legends that she longs to relate, but that no one takes seriously.

Many ascribed Lewton’s early death to his inability to be taken seriously as an “A-movie” producer. In fact, his particular set of talents and limitations seem to have fated him perfectly for the series of horror films he created with such care and passion. He was not some artist to be pitied, struggling to rise above vulgarity and shock – he used these elements to create his shadowy, evocative world (3).

Endnotes

1. Edmund G. Bansak, Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career, McFarland & Co., Jefferson, 1995, pp. 128-29. 
2. Dana Polan, “Cat People”, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 4^th ed., ed. Tom and Sara Pendergast, St. James Press, New York, 2000, p. 212-13. 
3. Other sources consulted in the preparation of this article include: Joel E. Siegel, Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror, Viking Press, New York, 1973; J. P. Telotte, Dreams of Darkness: Fantasy and the Films of Val Lewton, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1985; Alexander Nemerov, Icons of Grief: Val Lewton’s Home Front Pictures, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005; and Mark A. Vieira, “Darkness, Darkness: The Films of Val Lewton”, Bright Lights Film Journal 50 (November 2005).

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