Winter weather watching

What better way to spend the "blizzard of '09" then watching some movies I'd taped off TCM.

The Painted Veil - I thought this one would be an automic win, what with Garbo and all, but I'm rather lukewarm about it. I'm so attached to the Somerset Maugham novel that this adaptation disappointed me. I understand they need to make Garbo the heroine, but I think that could have been done without straying so very far from the novel. In its place I would recommend the 2006 version with Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, and Liev Schrieber.

Her Cardboard Lover - This movie gets a bad rap, and is often cited as the reason Norma Shearer retired from movies, but I loved it. Granted, she does go over the top a bit with all the "darling Tony!" stuff, but I kind of expect that from her. Robert Taylor was abolutely delightful with the silly bits and one liners. And who better to play the cad than George Sanders? Character actor bonus: Frank McHugh (whose character was named Chappie Champagne, how can you not love that?).

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang - I'd taped this months ago, when Alec Baldwin was guest hosting The Essentials. (Suggestion to Robert Osbourne: maybe next time let the guest host get a few words in edgewise?) Finally got around to watching it, and promptly went and bought the DVD from Amazon when the movie was over. EGAD. Paul Muni is brilliant, and Alec Baldwin was so right to advise the viewer to make sure and stay for the final scene (which happened the way it does by accident; I love those kind of stories). The plot is very like "The Roaring Twenties," one of my favorite Cagney movies.

Next Up: Bedlam (Karloff runs the infamous insane asylum!), Never Say Goodbye, 84 Charing Cross Road, and Girl 27 (you can read that [horrifying and true] story here.)

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet

I'm skipping ahead of myself to talk about Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet. I love a bio pic if it's done well, and this one was. One of my litmus tests: after I see the movie, do I want to learn more about the person? Would I buy a biography of them, if one was available? In this case, the answer was yes. There were so many interesting bio pics back in the 30's and 40's: Marie Antoinette, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and Queen Christina, to name just a few. (Yes, I realize these movies all took liberties with the facts.) And there are many more fascinating stories to be told; Hollywood, I'm looking in your direction. Why not find someone interesting and historically important, like Paul Ehrlich, and do a bio pic of them, rather than Mission Impossible 4 or a remake of a classic film that was fine in the first place, and yes I mean you, The Women. Ugh, let's not go there. I'm not even going to link it. The trailer commercials I'm seeing now make me grit my teeth.

Anyhow, back to the movie. I was really surprised that the film revealed the true subject of the bulk of Ehrlich's research: syphilis. After all, this is the Code age of Hollywood, (the film was released in 1940) when references to venereal disease were specifically forbidden (along with a bushel of other things). I can't imagine how this one got by Joe Breen, whose enforcement of the Code was "rigid and notorious." They do actually use the word "syphilis" (despite what IMDB would have you believe); there is in fact one amusing scene when Ehrlich, at a society dinner with a potential benefactress, is asked what he's working on, and he matter-of-factly says, "Syphilis." Everyone at the table stops cold and gasps; several reaction shots are shown. (His benefactress is not bothered at all, and does end up funding his research.)

While it's not stated outright that the men (and only men, although one female patient of another doctor is mentioned) Ehrlich treats caught the disease by sleeping around, it is hinted at in oblique ways; Ehrlich tells one patient he can "never get married," and the patient later kills himself.

However Warner Bros. got this one by the censors, I applaud them for doing so, because it is a film well worth seeing. The movie is also stuffed with character actor goodness, including appearances by Otto Kruger, Donald Crisp, Sig Ruman, Donald Meek, Henry O'Neill, Harry Davenport, and Montagu Love.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

Yesterday I watched the 1934 movie "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," with Norma Shearer, Charles Laughton, and Frederic March. Today it is chilly, and pouring rain. On the surface, these two facts may seem unrelated. To me, however, the nasty weather makes me envy Norma Shearer, who got to play most of this role reclining on a beautiful chaise lounge in front of a toasty fire with Flush, the adorable cocker spaniel, curled up in her lap. Right now, that sounds like heaven. (I can't find a picture of Norma in the role, but her lovely chaise lounge looked something like this, only more old-fashioned, with the buttons set deep in the upholstery).

I liked the movie quite a lot. Norma was very good as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and looked just gorgeous in those long curls. I thought Maureen O'Sullivan was too shrill as her sister Henrietta. I understand Henrietta's thwarted love affair and conflicts with their father were to lend drama to the story, but O'Sullivan gave it too much drama, in the scenery eating style you often see in old movies. When she shrieks at her father, "Is it nothing to you that I shall hate you for this to the end of my life?" and he answers, "Less than nothing," I was actually a little bit on his side. And her crying jag as she clings to his knees...dear, please get up and show some dignity. For all our sakes. I found O'Sullivan delightful as a "modern" girl, Dorothy, in "The Thin Man." There, her energy works well with the character. Here, in this period drama, she seems out of place.

It has been said that the scenes between Elizabeth and her father were toned down to lessen the suggestion of his incestous feelings for her. Charles Laughton famously replied, "They can't censor the gleam in my eye," and he was so right. It's rather subtly done at first; you don't get the idea right from the start that he's panting after his own daughter. He just seems like a big old control freak, who dominates over all his children. As the movie progresses, more and more hints come out that Elizabeth is his favorite child, in both (relatively) good ways and really, really bad ways. He's a master at manipulating her (and the rest of his children) with guilt trips.

Then there is the scene near the end, right before she runs away to marry Browning, where her father grabs her and goes on and on about how the family will move away to the country and Elizabeth will be his confidant and his comfort and...okay, now it's extremely icky. Sneaking out of the house with only the clothes on her back and her dog suddenly seems like a great idea. And she does. In a final touch of evil, Laughton orders one of Elizabeth's brothers to find her dog, take it to the vet, and have it destroyed. Henrietta triumphantly informs her father that Elizabeth has taken the dog with her.

Frederic March as Robert Browning...eh, March has never really done anything for me. He was good in "Anna Karenina," and "Susan and God," but I never see a movie listing and think to myself, "oooh, Frederic March, yay!" You don't actually see Browning much in the movie, so March made his usual non-impression on me.

Overall, I would recommend this movie, and was disappointed to learn that it's not out on DVD yet. In my world, it would be released as a Norma Shearer boxset with the following other movies (I'm only choosing ones that have not already been released on DVD):

Idiot's Delight (seeing Clark Gable perform "Puttin' on the Ritz" should be on every classic movie lover's list)
Strange Interlude
Romeo and Juliet
Riptide
Private Lives

Two of Norma's movies have recently been released on DVD as part of the Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 2 collection: "The Divorcee" and "A Free Soul."

In the Christmas Mood

The title has nothing really to do with the movie I watched today, The Glenn Miller Story. It's just that now I'm mini-obsessed with Miller, and I'm listening to In the Christmas Mood, Vol. 1 while I type this. And I've added a book about him to my Amazon wish list, which I'll delete in a week when my interest wanes back to normal levels (I've loved Miller's brand of big band music for awhile now).

So, the movie. I liked it. I love Jimmy Stewart in pretty much everything I've ever seen him do, even the cheese (read: Airport '77). Bonus points for appearances by George Tobias and Harry "Col. Potter" Morgan. I didn't recognize him until I heard him talk. Coincidentally, I had seen another minor player, Sig Ruman, in another film this weekend, To Be or Not To Be, which we'll get to in a minute. Now, back to Glenn...

I don't know anything about Glenn Miller's life, so I can't say how much is fictionalized or prettied up, but I still enjoyed the film. I read on IMDB that he never actually saw his adopted daughter; she was adopted while he was overseas, and he died only days afterwards, never having seen her. In the film, she's adopted as an infant while he's still in the States, and is about 2-3 when he leaves on his band tour; there's a sweet little scene where he sees her for the first time and gives her a bottle. The music, of course, was a delight -- I enjoyed the way they portrayed him composing his best known pieces (especially "Moonlight Serenade"); although I realize that may not be how it happened at all, the music wove its way into the movie very nicely.

As I mentioned, I also watched To Be Or Not To Be this weekend. Carole Lombard and Jack Benny: now that's an interesting combination. The movie is ostensibly about a group of Polish actors rebelling against the Germans, but of course the cast couldn't be more American. Robert Stack as a character named Stanislav Sobinski? Yeah, don't expect to be dazzled by that performance. I mean, he was good; everyone was. Carole was a delight, as always, and Benny was a big ham, again as always. The plot reminded me a bit of the Joan Crawford movie Reunion in France, which is even more ridiculous, plot-wise. Having glamorous Hollywood starlets, dressed to the nines, playing Europeans oppressed by the Nazis just never flies, at least not in any of the movies I've seen. Now, let one of them strip off the make-up and dress down like Norma Shearer did at the end of Marie Antoinette, and I'll be more inclined to suspend my disbelief. But you don't look terribly downtrodden when your lashes are three inches long. I'm just saying.

Make your own box set!

I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. Well, actually, Borders thought of it already; I think it was last summer. Buy 3 DVDs, get the 4th one free, and you got a handy little sleeve that you could color yourself. I checked it out, but none of the movies appealed to me. Mostly action, sci-fi, that kind of stuff. I’m going to pretend I have the power to release movies on DVD, and create a few box sets that need to be created, posthaste. Major studios and Ted Turner, are you listening? Here we go...

Joan Crawford: The Best of the 1930s

1. Dance, Fools, Dance
2. Laughing Sinners
3. Possessed (1931, obviously)
4. Rain
5. Dancing Lady
6. Sadie McKee
7. Chained
8. Forsaking All Others
9. Love on the Run

Okay, this would obviously be a rather hefty box set**, but I would totally buy it. The new Garbo one coming out this fall has seven sound movies (eight if you count both the German and English versions of Anna Christie) plus three silents and a documentary on ten discs for $69.94 (Amazon price). So how about nine Crawford movies for, say, $49.95? There are more good movies of hers from the 1930s, I just picked my favorites. You could also toss in Letty Lynton, I Live My Life, Gorgeous Hussy, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, or The Bride Wore Red.

**Pausing to look over some of the other "signature collection" box sets, I see that 9 movies in a set wouldn’t be outrageous at all. Here’s how many movies are in various other box sets:
Cary Grant – 5
Judy Garland – 7
Hitchcock – 9
Errol Flynn – 5, plus a documentary
John Wayne – 4
Hepburn & Tracy – 3, plus a documentary
Elizabeth Taylor – 4

So the bigger, the better is now my motto!

Moving on, let’s take a look at Jean Harlow, who should have had a box set long ago.

Jean Harlow: The Signature Collection

1. Hell’s Angels
2. The Public Enemy
3. Platinum Blonde
4. Red-Headed Woman
5. Red Dust
6. Hold Your Man
7. Dinner at Eight
8. Bombshell
9. China Seas
10. Wife vs. Secretary
11. Libeled Lady
12. Saratoga

I think that would about do it. Most people would probably take out Hold Your Man as it’s not one of her better known films, but I included it because I adore it. Also Saratoga could go, because it is kind of morbid to play "spot the body double." So that would make it an even ten. There’s room to fiddle – I could easily take out China Seas and put in The Girl from Missouri. I find myself inexplicably fascinated with Reckless, but that was pretty much a bomb, so we’ll skip it.

How about...

Judy and Mickey: The Collection

1. Babes in Arms
2. Babes on Broadway
3. Strike Up the Band
4. Love Finds Andy Hardy
5. Life Begins for Andy Hardy
6. Andy Hardy Meets Debutante
7. Girl Crazy

Or you could just whip up an Andy Hardy box set, although the last one, Andy Hardy Comes Home, has always seemed like a depressing idea to me.

Oh! How could I have almost neglected to mention...

Clark Gable: The Signature Collection

1. Red Dust
2. It Happened One Night
3. Manhattan Melodrama
4. Mutiny on the Bounty
5. Test Pilot
6. Idiot’s Delight
7. Mogambo
8. Run Silent, Run Deep
9. The Misfits

I know I’m missing a lot here, because there are quite a few of his films I haven’t seen. I know there’s one or several documentaries out there, so toss your favorite in. Another idea would be a Clark Gable and Joan Crawford collection.

Norma Shearer: The Signature Collection

1. The Divorcee
2. A Free Soul
3. Private Lives
4. Strange Interlude
5. Riptide
6. The Barretts of Wimpole Street
7. Romeo and Juliet
8. Marie Antoinette
9. Idiot’s Delight

I skipped The Women because it’s been released by itself as well as part of Joan’s new box set. Marie Antoinette should be released on DVD right now, just by itself, because it is a wonderful film, and Norma is fabulous in it.

Other random films that I’d love to see on DVD, not necessarily as part of a box set:

Jane Eyre
No Man of Her Own
I Love You Again
To Each His Own
Love Crazy
The Raven
The Black Cat (1934)

Okay, whoever owns the distributions rights to these movies, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Get cracking!

Simpler times

Myrna Loy, in her autobiography Being and Becoming, wondered about the modern nostalgia for the war years, as evidenced in both movies, and things people had said to her over the years. Why would people look back fondly on such a time, she wondered, which was full of terrible fears and tragedies. I see her point; I suppose people who look back are seeing those years through rose colored glasses, thinking about (or imagining, if they weren’t there) the good things, and not the bad. Another thing that lends itself to happier memories is the fact that we know now how it turned out -- a happy ending. I love big band music, including WWII songs (and also movies), and one theme that I can see the appeal of is the unity; there were clear cut good guys and bad guys, and from what I can tell, not many people questioned that, especially after Pearl Harbor. Not that people shouldn’t question, but compare our country’s attitude towards that war with, say, Vietnam, or the current war in Iraq. I can’t imagine our country, or at least a good majority of it, throwing itself behind a war like they did in WWII ever again. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

My own nostalgia goes back a decade farther, so the 1930s, when most of my favorite movies were made. I won’t list them all here, because the list is too long, and if I haven’t talked about them already, I soon will. The atmosphere of those movies, besides being so beautiful and glamorous, is one of an age that was sometimes rich and easy, sometimes poor and difficult (but of course not too difficult), but always…simpler. At least that’s how it seems to me. And yes, of course I know that this is Hollywood, and everything is covered with a patina of happiness, whether it’s a slapstick comedy, or a tearjerker that doesn’t seem bright until the end. I do know that life is never so simple as a movie. Yet the innocence that the studios put into their movies must have existed to some extent out in the world, I choose to believe. After all, this was the era when no one locked their doors, or so my grandfather told me.

An example of that very thing is the beginning of the 1933 movie Hold Your Man, which I’ve talked about before. Ruby is in the bath when Eddie bursts into her apartment, on the run from the police (he is a penny ante con man, no one dangerous). Ruby shrieks when Eddie runs into the bathroom, and he immediately goes back out. She comes out in her (ostrich feather trimmed) robe and demands to know what’s going on. Eddie coaxes Ruby to help him, and he hides in her tub (under a layer of suds) eluding the police with her help. Flirtatious banter ensues, Ruby dries his pants in her oven (ha), and Eddie takes off when Ruby’s neighbor comes to call (for a cup of bathtub gin). After realizing he’s sneaked out the bathroom window, Ruby runs to her dresser and shakes her piggy bank, whistling in relief when she finds that Eddie didn’t steal the money.

Now imagine that scene today. Granted, we still have the "encounter a stranger who changes your life for the better" premise in movies, but more it’s more likely that Eddie would be some psycho featured on America’s Most Wanted, and Ruby would be a crack dealing hooker, or worse (rather than just the "good time gal" she is in the movie). Either Eddie would attack her and she’d end up as this week’s victim on Law & Order SVU, or she’d have a gun and blow the intruder’s brains out. Never in a million years would they fall for each other and get married for the sake of their baby and for love, which is how Ruby "holds her man." No, today she’d have to go on Maury to prove paternity, if she ever got the kid back from foster care, since he was born while she was in prison.

See what I mean about simpler times?

Let’s take another example: Mary Haines from The Women. Mary finds out her husband Stephen is having an affair (sex is somewhat implied but never addressed directly) with a girl at the perfume counter of a department store, Crystal. They have it out in the fitting room of a boutique after a fashion show. Mary’s pride is hurt, and she goes to Reno and divorces him, making some lovely new girlfriends in the process. Mary suffers no other hardships, presumably living quite well on her alimony. Two years pass, Mary find out her ex is unhappy in his new marriage and that Crystal has a new paramour. She exposes Crystal (with the help of her pals and the friendly neighborhood gossip columnist, played by Hedda Hopper), and ends the movie by rushing back into her husband’s arms. "Pride! That’s something a woman in love can’t afford," she says happily.

Again, set the movie today (and I’ve heard that Hollywood is remaking The Women, which is an appalling idea). Mary, Crystal and Stephen would all end up on Jerry Springer, taking off their clothes and throwing chairs at each other. Mary would be lucky to get child support from Stephen, would have to go back to work, and most likely suffer financial hardships. Or if they were celebrities, their divorce documents would be on The Smoking Gun and tabloid photographers would follow them everywhere. There would be an ugly custody battle, Mary’s friends would talk to the tabloids, and Little Mary would need years of therapy to recover.

I’m sure terrible and painful things like this did happen to people back then, but I don’t imagine them to be as bad as things can get today. Maybe that’s naïve of me, and maybe I am buying too much into the MGM version of the world at that time. Yet I hear stories about my grandparents and great-grandparents, and I think…no, it’s not entirely false. Things were not always hearts and flowers, but they also weren’t as ugly as some things get today, either.

This is not to say that I wish we could, or think we should, go back to those times. As the saying goes, it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. If I had kidney failure like Jean Harlow did, I would want to live in a world where there are transplants and dialysis, not 1937 when my only option would be a slow, painful death. And I may love vintage phones, but I love the Internet more. Still, when the world around me becomes too ugly or scary or annoying to deal with, it’s lovely to know that I can put in a movie and go back to simpler times.

See how I wrapped up the essay with the title? Clever, eh? ;)