Category Archives: 1936

Piccadilly Jim

James Crocker, Jr.: Have you, by any chance, formed the wrong impression of me?
Ann Chester: I think not. You’re a typical American – European model.
James Crocker, Jr.: A romantic figure, I trust?
Ann Chester: Oh, very. I think the technical term is a bar fly.

The source material and the stars make this movie a lot of fun.

Robert Montgomery plays the title character, James Crocker, Jr., an American artist known as Piccadilly Jim who draws caricatures of London celebrities. He is accompanied everywhere by his faithful valet Bayliss (Eric Blore). One day he spots rich and beautiful Ann Chester (Madge Evans), who is engaged and won’t give him a tumble. Despondent, Jim shifts from caricature work to drawing a comic strip that parodies, unbeknownst to him, Ann’s own batty family. Will Jim get the girl? With Frank Morgan as Jim’s ham actor father.

The first thing I noticed about this film was its sparkling dialogue. The film is based on a P.G. Wodehouse novel and I imagine they lifted pages worth of the great man’s dialogue. It’s kind of a preposterous plot but surely that should be expected.

Love on a Bet

Uncle Carlton MacCreigh: Well the whole idea of the play is ridiculous. You expect anybody to believe that a man can leave New York in his underwear and get to Los Angeles in 10 days? … This boy wonder arrives in Los Angeles in a new suit of clothes, a hundred dollars in his pocket, and engaged to a beautiful girl. Ridiculous! Who’s gonna believe that?
Michael MacCreigh: Remember, this happens in a play, not in a slaughter house. It’s not beef ham and prize-cuts. It’s romance! Adventure! Just what people want to see in a play.

Michael MacCreigh (Gene Raymond) needs money to produce a Broadway show. His uncle wants him to work in the family meat packing business. Michael bets the uncle that he can start out from New York City in his underwear and, without borrowing money or buying anything, arrive in Los Angeles in ten days with a new suit, a fiancee and $100. He will also prove that the plot of his play is not totally ridiculous. With Wendy Barrie as the love interest and Helen Broderick as her no-nonsense aunt.

If you dial up your suspension of disbelief to 11 and like screwball plots, this could be amusing. Gene Raymond, whom I normally find very bland, gives possibly his most animated performance ever.  I thought this was OK but not more.

Marius

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family. ”
― Jim Butcher

Fanny loves Marius (Pierre Fresnay). Marius loves Fanny (Orane Demazis) but longs for a life of adventure on the sea. Marius’s father, César (Raimu) loves them both. This is a richly human film, filled with marvelous character parts and emotion. The dialogue is wonderful without being too stagy.

Favorite exchange: Wealthy widower who wants to marry young girl – “I have plenty of money.” Girl’s mother – “Nightgowns have no pockets.”

This is the first of three films collectively known as the “Marseilles Trilogy” or the “Fanny Trilogy” based on plays by Marcel Pagnol, who also wrote the source material for “Jean de Florette”, “The Baker’s Wife”, and other films. This trilogy is a great favorite of mine and I highly recommend it. I found that watching the films on three consecutive days only added to the impact.

Fanny
Directed by Marc Allegret
Written by Marcel Pagnol
1932/France
Les Films Marcel Pagnol/Les Établissements Braunberger-Richebé
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

When you grow up in an extended family, or in a stable neighborhood with two or three generations of families who live there, you feel seen. Not just the good things you’ve done, the stuff you put on your resume. You know they’ve seen you in your dark times, when you’ve messed up – but they’re still there. – Dean Ornish

Warm, witty, and poignant second part of Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille Trilogy.

At the end of Part I “Marius” (1931), Marius has fulfilled his dream of seeing far-off places by shipping off for five years leaving a devastated Fanny behind. Shortly after this film starts, poor Fanny finds herself pregnant. What would be a melodrama in other hands becomes a literate, surprising, and deeply human story here. Highly recommended.

Restoration Trailer (no subtitles)

César
Directed by Marcel Pagnol
Written by Marcel Pagnol
1936/France
Les Films Marcel Pagnol
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. – Lao Tzu

After 20 years have passed, the story comes full circle. I’ve reviewed this film here.

O-Mocha: If we do our jobs well they call us immoral. So what can we do? What are we supposed to do?

This sad but beautiful film by Kenji Mizoguchi is quite thought-provoking.

O-Mocha (Isuzu Yamada) and Umekichi are sisters.  They barely make ends meet working as geishas in the Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto.   The gentle Umekichi’s patron has gone bankrupt and she feels an obligation to take him in and look after him.  O-Mocha’s philosophy is that men are the enemy and should be taken for everything that can be gotten out of them. She plots to rid the household of Umekichi’s patron and find rich patrons for both of them.  Like a Japanese Scarlett O’Hara she will stop at nothing to get her way.  Ultimately, neither sister’s philosophy of life emerges victorious.

I thought this was fantastic.  Isuzu Yamada was even better than she was in Osaka Elegy and the cinematic storytelling is stunning.  Once again, there are few sympathetic characters here.  O-Mocha in particular is heartless in the extreme.  However, the film really made me think.  What, indeed, were they supposed to do?  O-Mocha finds herself in a tragic state of affairs at the end and her sister says she would not have suffered her fate if she had been nicer to men.  But O-Mocha says, even when she is broken, that being nice would mean giving in and she will never give in.  And Mizoguchi makes it clear that the nice sister doesn’t get anything for her pains either.  The system is stacked against the geisha and by implication against women in general.

And that concluded my viewing for 1936!