NFR Project: 'Cinderella' (1950)

 

NFR Project: “Cinderella”

Dir: Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi

Scr: William Peet, Ted Sears, Homer Brightman, Kenneth Anderson, Erdman Penner, Winston Hibler, Harry Reeves, Joe Rinaldi

Ed: Donald Halliday

Premiere: March 4, 1950

76 min.

As you may know from reading me, I hate Disney films. This is all due to me being traumatized at a young age by the likes of Bambi and Pinocchio (and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty and on and on . . . ). Their nightmare-inducing fare was not for me.

That being said, Cinderella is one of their least offensive movies, primarily because nothing horribly villainous happens to the protagonist. We are given a straight-up transcription, by and large, of the original fairy tale. Cinderella is the poor put-upon young lady who’s dominated by her wicked stepmother (not too scary) and her mean old stepsisters.

She has a fairy godmother who grants her wish to go to the ball, and her clothes are magically transformed. She and her handsome prince fall in love – but then she must flee by midnight, when the spell is broken. Only one glass slipper remains.

The prince then sends out a comic-opera duke to fit all the maidens in the kingdom with the slipper, in order to find his beloved. Cinderella, almost thwarted, reveals that she possesses the other slipper. And they live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, there is much comic byplay here with the birds and the mice, who are Cinderella’s allies. This helps to move the plot forward, but it is not actually funny, so the effort on them seems wasted. The songs are OK. Lovers of voice actors will note that Verna Felton, Candy Candido, and June Foray lend their skills to the production.

There is a kind of plastic-y sheen to a Disney film that makes me resist it. It is polished, airtight, precocious, condescending, a perfectly machined mechanism to provide family entertainment. It is, at its base, soulless and manipulative. The studio made tons of money from it, and it remains a significant component of Disney’s intellectual property.

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

NFR Project: 'Outrage' (1950)

 

NFR Project: “Outrage”

Dir: Ida Lupino

Scr: Ida Lupino, Malvin Wald, Collier Young

Pho: Louis Clyde Stoumen, Archie Stout

Ed: Harvey Manger

Premiere: Oct. 14, 1950

75 min.

Ida Lupino (1918-1995) was a force of nature. She was a member of a long-lived, illustrious English theatrical family, and went to Hollywood as an early age to work as an actress. She quickly found success in films such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), They Drive by Night (1940), and High Sierra (1941).

However, she wanted to do more. Learning about the job of directing as she continued to perform onscreen, she formed her own independent production company and began writing, producing, and directing low-budget films that focused on female protagonists dealing with contemporary problems. Her company, The Filmmakers Inc., created 12 films beginning in 1948. She directed six of them.

Outrage deals with rape and its consequences. Previously the subject had been tackled in mainstream American film only by Johnny Belinda (1948). Outrage starred Mala Powers, who had just been seen in Cyrano de Bergerac. In it, she plays Ann Walton, a young bookkeeper with plans for the future with her fiancé Jim.

She walks home alone one night. In a sequence shot in Expressionist style, she is stalked by a rapist, moving further and further into a nightmarish landscape of urban decay. Eventually, the man catches up to her and violates her (offscreen).

Her family, the police, and Jim all try to be supportive of her, but she feels guilty, that somehow she was responsible for her victimization. Paranoid, she thinks that everyone is staring at her and making comments about her. Lupino’s expert direction makes her impressions ambiguous – is she really an object of scorn, or is she just imagining it?

She abruptly leaves town on a bus, fleeing to Los Angeles to start a new life, she hopes. At a rest stop, she hears a radio report that everyone is looking for her. She leaves the bus, starts walking, and sprains her ankle. Lying pprone by the side of the road, she is picked up by a sympathetic and handsome minister, Bruce, who takes her to a nearby farm where she can find lodging and a job.

She changes her name and recovers slowly. Then, she attends a country dance where she is glommed onto by a horny male. He pushes her around, pins her down, tries to force himself on her. She nails him in the head with a handy pipe wrench.

She is put on trial. Bruce finds out about her earlier rape, and convinces the judge to commute her sentence. She spends a year under psychiatric supervision instead.

Ann is strongly attracted to Bruce, but he encourages her to return to her home and to Jim. She eventually agrees and leaves Bruce to his own musings.

The movie is as realistic as the censorial strictures of the time allow. The movie respects Ann and doesn’t trivialize her trauma. We see her go through a rocky process of healing, into a new and integrated sense of self. This kind of awareness was sorely lacking in films of the period. Lupino pushed for real-life stories about people with real-life problems, complex psyches, and ambiguous outcomes.

Lupino’s reputation has grown over the past few decades, and today she is seen as an essential proto-feminist filmmaker.

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

NFR Project: 'Cyrano de Bergerac' (1950)

 

NFR Project: “Cyrano de Bergerac”

Dir: Michael Gordon

Scr: Carl Foreman, Brian Hooker

Pho: Franz Planer

Ed: Harry W. Gerstad

Premiere: Nov. 16, 1950

113 min.

This immortal story is largely fiction, but it has its roots in reality. Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) was a real person – a writer, poet, playwright, and soldier of France. He was witty and daring. He created science fiction long before anyone else ventured into it. His brief life was studded with achievements. And, yes, he had an unnaturally large nose.

French playwright Edmond Rostand created the legendary figure of Cyrano de Bergerac in his dramatic work of the same name in 1897. He extrapolated the facts of Cyrano’s life and built what he termed an “heroic comedy” out of them. His play, wildly successful, received an extraordinary English translation by Brian Hooker, which proved to be a starring vehicle for the American actor Walter Hampden.

A revival of the play in 1947 led to a Tony win for Best Actor for Jose Ferrer. It was deemed worthwhile to capture his performance on film. This performance led to Ferrer winning an Oscar for Best Actor for the role in 1950. It was well-deserved.

In the play, Cyrano is highly regarded as a duelist and writer, someone not to be trifled with. He is proudly independent, consistently making powerful enemies that attempt to thwart him. He routinely wipes the floor with detractors who make fun of his nose, skewering them with his sword.

He has one weakness – he is madly and secretly in love with his cousin Roxanne, who sees him only as a brotherly figure. He fears that she will despise him due to his grotesque appearance. She confides to him that she is in love – he thinks excitedly at first it is with himself, but then sadly realizes that the object of her affection is a young and handsome new recruit to his fighting unit, Christian. Cyrano befriends Christian, and tells him of Roxanne’s attraction to him.

However, Christian is in despair. He has no gift for words, and Roxanne demands poetic love-talk from him. Cyrano hits upon a plan. He will write love letters to Roxanne and attribute them to Christian, so that the young cadet can win her love. In this way, Cyrano can unburden his heart to her in disguise.

In the famous nighttime balcony scene, Cyrano feeds Christian romantic lines to recite to Roxanne as she stands above him in the darkness. Christian is too hesitant, so Cyrano thrusts him aside and delivers a heartfelt romantic speech to her, which wins her heart – for Christian. The two are married, but their honeymoon is thwarted by the antagonistic Comte de Guiche, who orders Christian and Cyrano off to war.

Later, in the trenches, Cyrano writes and mails letters in Christian’s name to Roxanne, even when surrounded by enemy Spanish troops. Roxanne makes it through the lines with supplies for the cadets, and finally sees Christian again. She tells him of her delight at receiving love letters from him daily – and Christian realizes Cyrano loves her as well. Roxanne declares that she loves him for his soul, and would love him even if he were ugly.

Christian confronts Cyrano, and declares that Cyrano must reveal his love for her – that she must choose between them. This Cyrano is about to do when Christian is fatally wounded. Before dying, Cyrano lies to him, saying that Roxanne has chosen him. As Roxanne mourns, “My love weeps for me, and does not know!” Cyrano exclaims.

We move forward several years. Roxanne is now ensconced in a convent. Cyrano, as her old friend, visits her weekly, bringing with him amusing bits of court gossip. However, on this day, he has been attacked by his enemies and is fatally wounded. Hiding the bandages around his head, he goes to see her, though it means his death. The truth is finally revealed, and Roxanne declares her love for him. But it is too late. Sword in hand, Cyrano defies death and proclaims his triumph over it in the form of his panache, his vibrant spirit, his “white plume.” And he dies.

Ferrer’s performance is extraordinary. He is alert, intelligent, intense, not letting his cumbersome nose prevent him from fleshing out his heroic character. Whether he is dueling and rhyming simultaneously, or pretending to be a lunar traveler, his hearty spirit dominates the proceedings. The film follows the play faithfully, with minimal cuts to the original script. The settings and costumes are lavish, and the ensemble of actors is ideal.

Rostand’s Cyrano is the Cyrano we know today. Rarely has a fictional elaboration so completely eclipsed an actual historical figure.

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

 

 

 

 

 

NFR Project: Bohulano family film collection (1950s-1970s)

NFR Project: Bohulano family film collection

Recorded 1950s – 1970s

An admirable compendium of the joys of family life in a Filipinx immigrant community in Stockton, California, from the 1950s through the 1970s. These are truly home movies, and they document the life of an extended family and a segregated community in America. It includes the usual content of home movies – records of community events, family gatherings, and vacation trips. What elevates this collection above normal home-movie fare is that it gives the viewer a sense of family and how it endures, even in discriminated populations.

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

 

 

NFR Project: 'White Heat' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “White Heat”

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Scr: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts

Pho: Sidney Hickox

Ed: Owen Marks

Premiere: Sept. 2, 1949

114 min.

James Cagney was looking for a hit. After he won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1942, he left Warner Brothers, went off on his own and tried to make his own movies independently. He failed. So back he went to Warner Brothers, signing up to make more movies for the studio he had originally rejected.

The studio was eager for him to make a gangster film. Cagney resisted, as he thought he was being overidentified with the genre. However, he overcame his reluctance and made White Heat, one of the most iconic of all crime films.

It’s a bifurcated story. One half of it is about the modern police’s enhanced abilities and procedures that allow them to track down and neutralize bad guys; the other half is about Cody Jarrett. Cagney is Jarrett, in a towering performance of psychotic intensity.

Jarrett is a bank robber, ruthless and insane, unconcerned with his casual murders. He is unnaturally attached to his criminal “Ma” (Margaret Wycherly), who both lives for him and controls him. He suffers from spells of burning headaches that torment him; only Ma can soothe them away. Together, they seek to live large (“top of the world,” she tells him) He leads a gang that includes his wife Verna (Virginia Mayo) and right-hand man “Big Ed” (Steve Cochran).

Cody is almost nabbed for a train robbery, but pleads to a lesser (false) charge, so that he is sentenced to only two years in prison. A Treasury agent places an undercover man, Fallon (Edmond O’Brien) in prison, assigning him to befriend Cody.

Verna and Big Ed are playing around behind Cody’s back. Big Ed tries unsuccessfully to have Cody killed in prison. In an iconic scene in the prison mess, Jarrett finds out that Ma is dead. (Look closely in this scene for the great Native American athlete, Jim Thorpe.) He goes berserk, slugging guards and writhing frantically as he is carted away.

He vows to escape, and does with Fallon in tow. Returning home, he kills Big Ed and the inmate who tried to kill him. Soon the gang has another robbery in mind – the payroll department of a big chemical plant. Using a gas truck like a Trojan horse, the gang enters the plant and begins to crack the safe. Fallon is recognized, but escapes. Surrounded, the gang is rubbed out one by one. Jarrett climbs to the top of an enormous storage tank and fires into it. It bursts into flame. Shouting “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” Jarrett exults and is blown to smithereens.

Cagney was 49 when he made White Heat; his youthful good looks were leaving him and he was making the transition to character roles. His decision to play an utterly despicable character was unique, but it worked. Jarrett is a complex of violent impulses, barely capable of getting through the day without killing someone. It’s a brilliant portrayal of a criminal as a mentally damaged individual.

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

NFR Project: 'Twelve O'Clock High' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “Twelve O’Clock High”

Dir: Henry King

Scr: Henry King, Sy Bartlett, Beirne Lay Jr.

Pho: Leon Shamroy

Ed: Barbara McLean

Premiere: Dec. 21, 1949

132 min.

American war movies made during World War II were pure propaganda – gung-ho adventure stories in which the bad guys, the Nazis and the “Japs,” always lost. There was no shading, no questioning of the effort. It took a few years for more nuanced examinations of the conflict to appear on film.

One of the best is Twelve O’Clock High. It’s the fact-based story of an American bomber group in England in 1942. At that time, they were the only part of the American fighting forces to do battle with Nazi Germany. In order to blunt the German war effort, they engaged in daylight bombing of enemy targets. The difficulty and danger of these sorties were magnified by the fact that Allied fighter planes at the time did not have the range that would allow them to protect the bombers. B-17s flew into enemy airspace guarded only by their own guns.

The pressure was intense, as the higher-ups called for “maximum effort” – an unrelenting schedule of bombing raids, day after day, despite losses and despite the fatigue of its crews. Twelve O’Clock High takes on the story of the imaginary 918^th Bomber Group. Its efficiency is questioned, and complaints center on the attitude of its commander, Col. Davenport (Gary Merrill). Major Gen. Pritchard (Millard Mitchell) decides to replace him with Brigadier Gen. Savage (Gregory Peck), a by-the-book man who takes the tough-love approach with his fliers.

He is assisted by the capable and thoughtful Group Adjutant, Major Stovall (Dean Jagger) and the group doctor, Major Kaiser (Paul Stewart). Savage reads the riot act to his men, demoting some and disciplining others. All the pilots request transfers.

Savage delays their requests while he struggles to earn their confidence. He finds himself moved by the efforts and attitudes of his airmen, and begins to unbend. The transfer requests are withdrawn.

The action takes place in and around the base; the film could be a stage play save for a long combat sequence late in the film, culled entirely from documentary footage.

Gradually, he begins to identify with his men. He becomes more and more concerned with their survival, as the missions become longer and more devastating to the attackers. Finally, Savage finds himself incapable of entering his airplane for a mission. Catatonic, he is returned to base while his men fly off without him. It’s only when they return safely that he snaps out of it and goes to sleep.

All this is bracketed by the post-war visit of Stovall to the old field – this is a memory play, his memory. We never learn what happened to Savage.

The movie is a textbook study of the management of men – in this case, men in battle. Despite the formalities and conventions of military life, the human factor bleeds through and engulfs even the hardest-hearted general. Peck is solid as Savage, and Jagger delivers a Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winning performance as Stovall. Gary Merrill and Millard Mitchell, usually not seen in central roles, do a great job in their performances. Hugh Marlow, in particular, makes a memorable impression as disgraced pilot Gately.

Vulnerable men try to do the impossible, and they largely succeed. But at what cost?

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

NFR Project: 'The Lead Shoes' (1949)

NFR Project: “The Lead Shoes”

Dir: Sidney Peterson

Premiere: 1949

17 min.

Uh, OK. An experimental film, shot in surrealist style. A young woman drags an empty diving suit around. Hopscotch is played in slow motion. Blood splatters from a loaf of bread. There is no attempt to make sense of things. This film is an exercise in non-narrative cinema. As such, I guess that it is successful – on its terms. For me, it is merely a self-indulgent curio.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Heiress' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “The Heiress”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Augustus Goetz, Ruth Goetz

Pho: Leo Tover

Ed: William Hornbeck

Premiere: Oct. 6, 1949

115 min.

If ever you want to take a master class in acting, look no further than The Heiress. Although it won Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Art Direction, it is the performances of the three principals – Ralph Richardson, Olivia de Havilland, and Montgomery Clift – that make it an extraordinary film. Let me explain.

First, the source material for the film was the hit 1947 play of the same name, by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, based in turn on the Henry James’ 1880 novel, Washington Square. It’s the story of a rather plain-looking, uncurious, and sheltered young woman, Catherine Sloper (de Havilland) who lives with her wealthy doctor father (Richardson) in luxury. They do not revel in it, they take it as their due. Dr. Sloper resents his daughter, as her birth caused the death of his beloved, beautiful, intelligent, and talented wife.

Catherine is prodded into attending a dance. She is approached by a young and handsome destitute upper-class fortune hunter, Morris Townsend (Clift), who tells her sweet lies and manipulates her into wanting to marry him. Dr. Sloper is onto Morris from the outset, and comments acidly on him, the proposed marriage, and on Catherine’s despised existence in general. Sloper’s barely concealed hostility and contempt for Catherine poison his words of warning about Morris. She ignores them. In fact, she touts her independence, insisting she will live on the $10,000 she has outright rather than on her father’s $30,000.

Finally, the two young lovers agree to elope. Morris finds out that Sloper has changed his will, and that if she marries him, she will not get the $30,000. He makes tender declarations of love, and vanishes. Catherine sits in the parlor, packed, ready to be whisked away. Eventually the truth becomes obvious. He’s not coming.

Fast forward a few years. Sloper is presumably dead. Catherine is still needlepointing, alone in her fabulous Washington Square home. Guess who comes to visit? I won’t spoil the ending, but it is extremely satisfying.

Wyler adapted no fewer than 12 stage plays into movies in his directing career. He was an expert at filming unobtrusively, giving his actors space to work, capturing that pleasure one gets when one sees a superior live performance.

He lets Richardson, de Havilland, and Clift inhabit a scene, really playing it instead of skating over it. The characters seem lived-in. Wyler keeps a respectable distance from the actors, lets them work through a scene slowly if they need to, giving them time to react, to indicate. He creates a superior motion picture by letting his actors work.

The dialogue is highly mannered, in the style of the repressed upper class in mid-to-late 19^th century American society, which was the landscape Henry James painted, again and again. Everyone speaks a carefully coded, polite, formal language – you must discern the emotions from other, visual, cues. (Until Morris appears, there is no display of emotion in the film. How liberating his faux endearments must have felt!) The formal language, the buried emotion of James: similar to the classic samurai film, oddly. A similar hierarchy.

Richardson is best at this: he can steal a scene just standing and staring . . . just a little too hard. De Havilland has the time of her life morphing from a mindless innocent into a wiser, sadder woman, one infinitely more intelligent than the men around her. Clift has to play a heel. He is an inspired con artist, one who lies glibly and convincingly, so much so that you feel he is amazed by his own ability to deceive and manipulate others. He is a very devil. The three clash together in quiet rooms.

The settings are sumptuous and solid, a naturalistic replication of the look of the period. Everyone is dressed to the nines (in fact they never reveal anything of the body), stiffly, at attention. The cinematography is tight, precise. Displays of passion are almost unknown, and the most intense emotions are enunciated on transits up and town the tasteful stairs of their home. An immense amount of emotion comes cascading down through a trio who would never utter a loud word, but who would negotiate the emotional shifts James and the Goetzs put them through.

Miriam Hopkins, a starlet of the 1930s, here plays a dotty, romance-besotted aunt. And Betty Linley, who I've never heard of, has a great scene as Morris' sister, Mrs. Montgomery.

Aaron Copland’s score is instantly identifiable as in his style, but for all that it is as subdued and complex as the story itself. He won the Oscar. And by the way, de Havilland won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance here. She clearly conveys Catherine’s heady trip into the world of feeling.

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