NFR Project: 'Mom and Dad' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Mom and Dad”

Dir: William Beaudine

Scr: Mildred Horn

Pho: Marcel LePicard

Ed: Richard Currier

Premiere: Jan. 3, 1944

97 min.

Oh, boy. Is this really an exploitation film? It is if you consider how it was distributed throughout the country. Banned from movie theaters due to its content, it was shown on the fly – in rented halls in small towns across America. It was promoted by a huckster named Kroger Babb, who made it seem like a shocking, revelatory, forbidden insight into SEX. It made Babb a fortune.

More than 300 prints of the film were struck off, and Babb created a storm of controversy wherever he intended to show the film. His employees would send in letters of protest to the local authorities, and a massive amount of advertisements would appear in local papers before the screenings. This would whip up the curious, and drive attendance. Sex “lecturers” would accompany the film, taking questions from audiences. Printed materials associated with sex education would be sold at the screenings as well.

However, it is not so much an exploitation film as it is a sex hygiene film. It has at its core three short clinical films – one of the gestation process and a woman giving birth, a second of a Caesarian section, and lastly one that shows the effects of late-stage venereal disease. These are anything but titillating. In fact, they are horrifying. However, they were as close as you could get the time to serious, accurate information about what was called then “sex hygiene,” or sex education.

The clinical films came at the end of the movie. To pad out the film’s length, these films were imbedded into a narrative about a girl whose mother refuses to teach her about sex. As a result, she “goes too far” with a handsome stranger and finds herself pregnant. Ashamed, she reveals her condition to the family and is sent back East to have the child, far away from her hometown.

The fictional section of the film was produced on a bare-bones budget and directed by a man best known for his low-budget films, William Beaudine. The acting is wooden, the script is turgid and awful. It serves as a cautionary tale and introduction to the material covered at the film’s end.

Anyone in their right mind seeing these films would not be inspired to have sex. Rather, they would be disgusted by the whole affair and turned off from the prospect. Babb didn’t care. He was just making a buck.

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

NFR Project: 'The Miracle of Morgan's Creek' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”

Dir: Preston Sturges

Scr: Preston Sturges

Pho: John F. Seitz

Ed: Stuart Gilmore

Premiere: February 1944

99 min.

Decades before Mony Python, an American filmmaker openly mocked the birth of Christ and got away with it. He parodied the Nativity with a tale of an unwanted pregnancy by an unknown man that turns out to, indeed, be a miracle. This is the kind of stuff that Preston Sturges was smart enough to craft; what’s more impressive is that he did it on the fly and under pressure. In Hollywood.

Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is a lively young girl (and, as the film states, a MINOR) in an American anytown who is loved pathetically and unsuccessfully by Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken). Norval is unusable by the armed services, as he, when he panics, which is most of the time, sees “The Spots!” Trudy is the daughter of the town’s irascible Constable Kockenlocker (the great William Demarest).

Trudy goes to a party, and gets Norval to cover for her, as they proceed on one of the longest traveling shots in film history – the film is dotted with two-handed takes of Trudy and Norval talking as they stroll, monitoring their relationship as it deepens.

While she’s out, she gets drunk . . . and, dancing, she hits her head when she is lifted skyward into a suspiciously phallic-shaped mirrored ceiling decoration.

She then finds out she’s pregnant (how did this get past the censors?). She can’t remember . . . she suspects she got married to and had sex with someone with a name like “Ratzskywatzsky.” Norval, still loving her deeply, offers to marry her himself. They decide to get married under the name of Ratzkywatzsky, then Trudy can get divorced and marry Norval for real. They get caught. Norval goes to jail. Constable Kockenlocker, seeing Norval’s goodness of heart, breaks him out of jail and helps him rob the bank. Norval escapes, vowing to find Ratzskywatzsky..

He returns six months later. The Kockenlockers have moved away; the Constable was fired. He’s imprisoned again. It’s Christmas Eve, of course.

Trudy comes down to the jail to tell the truth. Then Trudy gives birth! To male sextuplets, no less. The governor and his political fixer (Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff from Sturges’ The Great McGinty [1940]) declare Norval free, and Trudy and Norval as retroactively married. The news confounds the world, which is evidently focused on super-maternities. All of the Axis powers’ leaders are flabbergasted. And all the principals live happily ever after.

It is outrageous. All of the great Sturges performers are present. There’s Bracken as Norval Jones, the classic timid and overwhelmed Sturges hero. The more Norval tries to get things right, he more he makes things worse, with clocklike precision. Betty Hutton plays his beloved Trudy Kockenlocker to perfection. She is the unwilling Madonna of the piece, a good-time gal who gets knocked up by an unknown serviceman. Pianist Diana Lynn is perfectly cast as the smart-aleck little sister who serves as a kind of sarcastic Greek chorus (and she plunks out some low-down blues). The immortal Sturges regular Al Bridge gets a couple of great scenes as a lawyer.

Sturges is making a pointed reference to the free-swinging sexual hospitality the women of the country gave to servicemen during the Second World War. He had a point to make about that, but he couldn’t help himself. He also saw it as a reiteration of the story of the birth of Jesus. Here, an unknown man is the Holy Spirit, Norval is the suffering Joseph, Trudy Mary. The military is given a skewering as well. The Hays Office didn’t like it; neither did the War Department.

Somehow Sturges overcame their objections. He slyly tiptoes around his subject, making the most seemingly oblique yet blatantly overt points with eloquent ease. The film is filled with crackling dialogue that plays with the quick flow of improvisation. It was a huge hit. If there was ever a sterling example of the maintenance of freedom of thought during wartime, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is it.

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

NFR Project: 'The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Jerome Chodorov, Lester Koenig, William Wyler

Pho: William H Clothier, William V. Skall, Harold J. Tannenbaum, William Wyler

Ed: Lyn Harrison

Premiere: April 13, 1944

45 min.

This is the most death-defying of all the films in the National Film Registry list.

The idea for a documentary about the crew of a B-17 bomber came from the War Department. It wanted to give folks at home a sense of what the soldiers were facing in the air war over Germany. Thanks to the intrepid director William Wyler and a brave crew of cameramen, America got a harrowing look at the cold hard facts of what World War II combat was like.

To be sure, this was a propaganda film. The purpose was to document the 25^th and final required mission of a bomber crew over Germany, before their crew was taken off the front line and rotated back to the United States. The Memphis Belle, captained by Robert K. Morgan, fit the bill. The captain got Wyler’s word that the filming would not affect the plane’s operations, especially during combat. Then the cameramen went for a few rides – no fewer than seven missions.

In keeping with poetic license, and the desire to get graphic footage of combat, not all of the footage in the film is of the Belle. In February of 1943 they went on a mission in the Jersey Bounce, and there is some footage from that. (Wyler reassured Morgan that, if they went down on their last mission, he had a backup crew and bomber in place to make the movie about.)

This is the real thing. The movie was shot with 16-millimeter color silent film stock. Narration, dialogue, sound effects, and music were dubbed in later. We are given an outline of how a mission comes together, how the crew prepares, the bomber group’s takeoff from the English fields. After a lengthy journey east, we get into it. Flak bursts pepper the skies.

They reach their target. Bombs away. The film does not shy away from showing the effects of the bombing from the air. The bomber group hightails it for home. German fighters swoop in, taking out Allied bombers on either side of the Belle. It’s brutal. You are watching men trying to kill each other, and succeeding.

Wyler knew how to tell a story. He crafts a taut and compelling narrative out of what could have nominally been random footage. He creates a story of American valor, not stridently but with dignity.

We cut from the return-flight battle to the airfields, where crews wait for the planes’ return. The craft straggle in; the movie frankly shows the wounded men being bundled off the planes. We are shown the holes in the planes, the rents in their tails. The tone of the narration is defiant, but the pictures detail the cost of war in the faces of the wounded and the dead. The men of the Memphis Belle survive.

Then every member of the crew gets the Distinguished Flying Cross, and they get to meet the King and Queen of England. Now, to be sure, not every retiring bomber crew got this treatment. It’s a was kind of a grotesque bet. If they, this particular crew, live, all this cool stuff happens to them. If they die, there are replacements. 

It’s ultimately a patriotic document that doesn’t shy away from the facts of the war.

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

 

 

NFR Project: 'Meet Me in St. Louis' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Meet Me in St. Louis”

Dir: Vincente Minnelli

Scr: Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe

Pho: George J. Folsey

Ed: Albert Akst

Premiere: Nov. 22, 1944

113 min.

This film is a valentine to days gone by. Specifically, it takes us to St. Louis in 1903-1904, an innocent and wholesome time when everyone (everyone white, that is) lived in harmony and plenty and only the affairs of the heart seemed important.

It’s the story of the Smith family, a mother (Mary Astor), father (Leon Ames), and five children – one boy. (Henry H. Daniels Jr.) and four girls, Rose (Lucille Bremer), Esther (Judy Garland), Agnes (Joan Carroll), and “Tootie” (Margaret O’Briend). Grandpa (the always reliable Harry Davenport) lives in their big house, too. Everyone is terribly excited about the coming opening of the St. Louis World’s Fair, due in the spring. 

Father is a lawyer; his firm seeks to relocate him to New York City. His entire family protests – this ruins all the girls’ romances, as well as their future plans. As the film moves through the seasons of summer, fall, and winter, we see the life of the family through the eyes of the children, particularly Esther, who’s in love with the boy next door, and Tootie, who suffers from holiday traumas. She endures a terrifying Halloween, and breaks down and destroys her family’s snowmen at Christmastime, bereft at the prospect of moving.

The film boasts an excellent score, some songs of the period, and some new songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, including the classics “The Boy Next Door,” “The Trolley Song,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.

This was director Vincente Minnelli’s first big hit. He had a wonderful way with color cinematography – all the costumes are gay and colorful, and the scenes in the neighborhood are vibrant. In particular, Minnelli was adept at getting nighttime scenes on the screen in Technicolor – the process was notorious for needing massive amounts of lighting to bring out the colors, but the cinematography by George Folsey is top-notch.

All in all, this nostalgic memory piece is the perfect kind of entertainment for a war-time America that needed a respite from the hard facts of the conflict. It continued Judy Garland’s status as one of the nation’s top performers, and it set Minnelli on a path to mastery of the American musical film.

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

NFR Project: 'Laura' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Laura”

Dir: Otto Preminger

Scr: Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Betty Reinhardt, Ring Lardner Jr.

Pho: Joseph LaShelle

Ed: Louis Loeffler

Premiere: Oct. 11, 1944

88 min.

For a famous film noir, Laura is rather stodgy (even though it won the Oscar for best cinematography). One of director Otto Preminger’s earlier films, it is a mystery set in the high society of New York. A young woman, Laura, has been found murdered in her apartment. A detective (Dana Andrews) investigates. There are several suspects: a playboy (Vincent Price), a columnist (Clifton Webb), a society lady (Judith Anderson).

The detective broods beneath Laura’s portrait, becoming obsessed with her. Suddenly, Laura (Gene Tierney) reenters her apartment! So now the questions become: who was murdered? And who wants Laura dead?

The one enlivening part of the film is Clifton Webb’s portrayal of Waldo Lydecker, a bitter old queen. His performance is coded as homosexual, and Webb plays it to the hilt. His dark witticisms enliven the plot and help to keep us guessing. Safe to say we will not reveal the murderer here; it is all rather contrived and unbelievable. David Raskin’s theme for the movie became a standard.

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

NFR Project: 'Jammin' the Blues' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Jammin’ the Blues”

Dir: Gjon Mili

Pho: Robert Burks

Ed: Everett Dodd

Premiere: Nov. 9, 1944

10 min.

It’s pretty amazing. Shot over four days by LIFE magazine photographer Gjon Mili, Jammin’ the Blues is an accurate a picture as exists of an expert panel of American jazz musicians in their prime and in sync, tearing up three tunes in a scant 10 minutes.

Reportedly the film developed from a series of West Coast concerts. Evidently omeone smart decided to record the musical moment (half of the producing duo was the legendary jazz producer and promoter Norman Granz). The tightly choreographed sessions gave an incredible roster of talent exposure. There is Lester Young on tenor sax, Red Callender on bass, Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet, Marlowe Morris on piano, “Big” Sid Catlett and Jo Jones on drums, John Simmons on double bass, Illinois Jacquet on tenor sax, and Marie Bryant singing and jitterbugging for the camera

Guitarist Barney Kessel was the only white member of the ensemble. His face and hands were stained with makeup to make him blend in. Such was the state of American culture that, as late as 1944, presenting the idea of an integrated ensemble was anathema to the general public.

 

The rest of the musicians, however, are brilliantly lit, shot in loving detail as they make their music. They launch directly into the first number, Young’s “Midnight Symphony,” a very blues-centric piece. The camera circles away from the crown of Prez’s distinctive porkpie hat, to take him in as he slays the opening solo. Edison is next, carving the air into intricate patterns.

The players move on to supporting vocalist Marie Bryant in her rendition of “On the Sunny Side of the Street” (1930). Fun fact: although nominally with music by Jimmy McHugh and words by Dorothy Fields, it is said that Fats Waller really wrote the music and sold the rights. Young slays again.

The band then swings into the title number, taking the short out with a bang. There is some quadrupling of images via camera trickery, and some beautiful silhouette work of jitterbugging. The soloists get their moment in the sun (except for Barney Kessel). The music itself stands at the intersection of the classic approach to jazz and the first hints of what would come to be known as bebop. The final solo by Illinois Jacquet, is in places, atonal sqonks.

It really works. It’s a remarkable document, a vibrant passage of music that only America could create.

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

NFR Project: 'Hail the Conquering Hero' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Hail the Conquering Hero”

Dir: Preston Sturges

Scr: Preston Sturges

Pho: John F. Seitz

Ed: Stuart Gilmore

Premiere: Aug. 9, 1944

101 min.

It’s the great comic writer/director Preston Sturges’ most pointed satire, the most heartfelt and the most subversive.

To tackle the theme of false heroism during wartime is seemingly a losing proposition. The last thing any studio executive at the time would want would be a film questioning martial prowess. Nonetheless, Sturges saw the comic possibilities in the idea and pushed it to its logical conclusion.

Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) was born nine months after his father died a hero in World War I. Yearning to become a Marine himself, he enlists when World War II breaks out, but is rejected for extreme hay fever. He goes to work in a shipyard, but doesn’t tell his mother he got washed out of the service. Instead he writes letters indicating that he has gone overseas.

Now he longs to go home to his small town, but he can’t think of how to do it. Six Marines enter the bar he’s in – he buys them all beer and sandwiches, and they find out his story. The six of them figure out a way – being helpful, they dress Woodrow as one of them, pin medals they’ve won on his chest, and escort him home.

Woodrow thinks he can get away with his subterfuge quietly – but then the entire town comes out to meet him at the train station, with multiple brass bands and banners. He is lionized by everyone in town. They burn his mother’s mortgage. They nominate him for mayor. His girlfriend, who he broke up with by mail, wants him back. (Watch for one of the world's longest tracking shots; it would be outstripped in his The Miracle of Morgan's Creek [1944].)

Woodrow frantically tries to make things right and only gets in deeper and deeper. The desperation and panic is palpable through Bracken’s flawless portrayal of Woodrow. He is the typical Sturges hero – confused, panicked, completely reluctant. All the usual Sturges players are here, including Franklin Pangborn, Jimmy Conlin, Al Bridge, Raymond Walburn, and Harry Hayden. This gallery of small-town types are more than happy to elevate Woodrow to near-messiah status, and the gullibility of the common man is demonstrated to its utmost.

Pretending to be what he is not is tortuous to Woodrow, and his agony becomes more serious as the film goes on. One Marine (Freddie Steele) is obsessed with making Woodrow look good for his mother, and when Woodrow tries to back out, things get violent. Mother love is dangerous.

Finally, Woodrow confesses publicly, in a deeply dramatic scene that the film has somehow prepared the viewer for. He plans to leave town, and his girl says she’ll go with him. The town turns out en masse – not to lynch him, but to applaud his honesty and modesty, and to ask him to continue to run for mayor. The improbably happy ending works, and off the magic-making Marines go, to the salutes of the crowd and the clangor of a brass band.

In a time when there were plenty of dead heroes to go around on the home front, to spoof the role of the hero in a society eager for heroes is merciless. The self-delusion of the entire society is brought to bear on Woodrow, the unwitting martyr. We are happy with fake heroism, if it comes with a good story. (The Marines tell more and more outrageous stories of Woodrow’s valor.)

By film’s end, any rational viewer has had their assumptions turned inside out expertly. Sturges’ comedies are not without their moral observations. Sturges had extreme reservations about mankind’s intelligence and integrity – but he always manages to reward the underdog by the end of the film.

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

NFR Project: 'Going My Way' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Going My Way”

Dir: Leo McCarey

Scr: Frank Butler, Frank Cavett

Pho: Lionel Lindon

Ed: LeRoy Stone

Premiere: Aug. 14, 1944

126 min.

Ah, Der Bingle. Most people don’t remember today, but Bing Crosby (1903-1977) was one of the most popular entertainers of the 20^th century. The suave and relaxed crooner started off as a musical and radio star, but he later expanded his work into films and television as well. Going My Way won him a Best Actor Oscar (it won six other Oscars to boot), and cemented his position in American culture as a genial, kind-hearted fellow who happened to sing beautifully.

He started performing in high school, continued in college, and set out as a performer in night clubs and vaudeville houses. His singing approach was fundamentally different from what was the standard at the time. Back then, the unamplified singers were expected to hit the back wall of the theater with loud, brash voices. Crosby worked differently.

Using the microphone to his advantage, and strongly influenced by the relatively new art form of jazz, he modulated his voice. He kept his tone conversational and concentrated on expressing the lyrics. His liquid tone and effortless phrasing were magnetic; women swooned over him and men thought of him as a pal. It turned out he could successfully sing just about anything – love songs, pop songs, blues, country, hymns, even novelty numbers – you name it. Before he was done he had recorded somewhere north of  1,600 tunes, and sold millions of records.

He appeared in many films throughout the 1930s, honing his acting skills and perfecting his easygoing, comfortable, nonchalant persona. By the time Leo McCarey concocted Going My Way, Crosby was firmly ensconced in the public imagination.

Here he plays Father “Chuck” O’Malley, a young priest sent to the New York City parish of St. Dominic’s to take over as pastor of the congregation from a 45-year veteran of the job, Father Fitzgibbons (Barry Fitzgerald, who had a lock on playing comic Irishmen in film). The two priests don’t see eye to eye at first, but as the parish has money troubles, they join forces to get St. Dominic’s out of the red. Father O’Malley starts a boy’s choir in the church basement, and soon they are so successful they go on tour, their proceeds enriching the church.

O’Malley is a bit of a tunesmith, and a peppy number he composes (“Swingin’ on a Star,” a song that Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke wrote, which became a smash hit) is sold to a music company, saving the church. In the meantime, Father Bing befriends Fitzgibbons, counsels some young people, mends fences with the community, garners big donations, and generally gets the church back into fighting shape. He's the original magic Christian. He croons a few tunes as well. The bishop declares that Fitzgibbons can remain as the head of St. Dominic’s, and O’Malley moves on to his next assignment.

There is plenty of gentle humor here and some nice moral uplift as well. (Look carefully and you will find Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer from the Our Gang comedies in a teen role.) In wartime America, this was just the kind of “feel-good” movie that people wanted to see. It would prove one of McCarey’s most successful films at the box office.

And who didn’t love Bing? As Artie Shaw said of him, "The thing you have to understand about Bing Crosby is that he was the first white hip person born in the United States."

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

NFR Project: 'Double Indemnity' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Double Indemnity”

Dir: Billy Wilder

Scr: Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler

Pho: John Seitz

Ed: Doane Harrison

Premiere: July 3, 1944

107 min.

It seemed like such a good plan at the time.

This story of a would-be murder plot gone wrong is one of the classic film noirs. It has everything – adultery, a male protagonist played for a chump, a femme fatale, a “perfect crime” that quickly falls apart. All these are the hallmarks of the film noir.

The movie is based on the great crime writer James M. Cain’s classic 1938 novella of the same name. In the hands of the always-sensational director Billy Wilder, it’s a taut thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the word go. Add the contributions of master detective novelist Raymond Chandler as a screenwriter, you have an unbeatable combination.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray, playing against type as a heel) is an insurance salesman who runs into a seductive housewife, Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck), who hints that she’d like to buy an insurance policy on her husband’s life – which Neff immediately senses is part of a plan to bump her abusive husband off. The only problem is: Neff is wildly attracted to her. Thinking with his crotch instead of his brain, he quickly conceives of a supposedly foolproof way to murder the husband, make it look like accident, and collect $100,000 – a “double indemnity” payout on his insurance policy.

This being Golden Age Hollywood, the censorship restrictions dictate that the perpetrators don’t get away with it. Just how all their efforts come to naught is related in a brilliant flashback, which Walter narrates as, wounded, he confesses into a Dictaphone machine. He manages to fool almost everyone except his boss, a claims manager played by Edward G. Robinson, who has a “little man” in his gut that tells him something is not right with the claim. As he gets closer to the truth, Neff finds out that his beloved has murdered before – and plans to murder again, including him.

Barbara Stanwyck, also playing against type, portrays a fabulously sexy blonde with a heart of stone. Robinson is great as the grumpy, methodical claims adjuster who just can’t leave well enough alone. John Seitz’s cinematography borrows the use of stark light and shadow from the German Expressionist films of the ‘20s, putting it to work to outline the sinister intent behind almost every character’s motivation.

In this film, almost no one is innocent. Life is seen as a tawdry collection of acts undertaken to get ahead. No one is safe; everyone is suspect. The dark and cynical tone of the film is remarkable for the time – it’s surprising that it got made. The best moments are silent; at one point Neff exclaims that he can no longer hear his footsteps – they are the footsteps of a dead man. The furtive meetings in a grocery store between Neff and Phyllis; the look on Stanwyck’s face as her husband in killed right next to her in the front seat of their car; the murderers’ car refusing to start after the body is dumped; all are key moments that tell us that, for wrongdoers, the world is an untrustworthy sewer.

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

NFR Project: 'Gaslight' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Gaslight”

Dir: George Cukor

Scr: John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, John L. Balderston

Pho: Joseph Ruttenberg

Ed: Ralph E. Winters

Premiere: May 4, 1944

114 min.

The 1938 play Gas Light by British writer Patrick Hamilton had a long life. When the play was mounted in America (starring Vincent Price in his first major villainous role), it ran for an amazing three years on Broadway, from 1941 through 1944. It was adapted into a memorable British film in 1940, dubbed Angel Street in the U.S., and starred the great Anton Walbrook in the villain’s part.

MGM noted the success of the film and determined to make an American version of it. Gathered under the direction of the venerable George Cukor, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten played the primary roles. It also boasted the first film appearance of Angela Lansbury, who played a slatternly maid.

The result is a gripping thriller (so scary that MGM labeled it "not suitable for general exhibition"). It’s a story set in foggy London in the Edwardian Age. A famous opera singer is strangled to death, and her murderer escapes. This event traumatizes the victim’s niece Paula (Bergman), who leaves her dead aunt’s mansion in Thornton Square and moves to Italy to work on her voice – she hopes to imitate her aunt’s vocal prowess.

She finds that she does not have the taste for following in her aunt’s footsteps, but in the meantime is swept off her feet by the dashing accompanist Gregory Anton (Boyer). After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry. Gregory insists that they return to the aunt’s shuttered mansion, which slightly unsettles Paula. Gregory moves all of her aunt’s belongings to the mansion’s top floor, and the two begin their life together.

But something is amiss. When Gregory leaves the house in the evening, the gaslight in the house dims – a sign that the gas is being utilized somewhere else in the dwelling. Paula finds a letter from a Sergius Bauer to the aunt, which her husband angrily snatches from her. She hears footsteps and bumping from the floor above, but Gregory insists that she is imagining things.

Gregory gives Paula a brooch, which Paula promptly loses. He forbids her to leave the house unaccompanied, isolating her from her neighbors. He convinces her that she suffers from mental instability. A picture on the wall disappears, and Gregory accuses Paula of hiding it. He misses his watch, which turns up in Paula’s reticule. Paula becomes more and more distraught, convinced that she is losing her mind.

Meanwhile, an intrepid police inspector (Cotten) revives the aunt’s unsolved murder case, and begins to suspect that Gregory is not who he seems to be. Several valuable jewels owned by the aunt were never found, and the inspector suspects that Gregory was her murderer—and that he is still searching for those gems. Time is running out, as Gregory determines to commit Paula to a mental institution.

Far be it from me to reveal the conclusion – but note that Bergman won the Oscar for her portrayal of a woman losing her mind, and that the film won an Oscar for its atmospheric production design. Cukor’s subtle approach keeps us guessing – is Paula really crazy? Paula is trapped in her home, the victim of a cruel manipulator who turns her home into a prison and their marriage into a paranoid conflict.

The play, and the two films that resulted from it, gave us the expression “gaslighting,” meaning the attempt of a person to convince another that their perceptions are not true. Do the lights in Paula’s home really dim? And if so, why?

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

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.