Flickers in Time

Le Corbeau (The Raven)
Directed by Georges-Henri Clouzot
Written by Louis Chavance and Georges-Henri Clouzot
1943/France
Continental Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dr. Vorzet: You think that people are all good or all bad. You think that good means light and bad means night? But where does night end and light begin? Where is the borderline? Do you even know which side you belong on? [/box]

This brilliant thriller managed to make all sides mad in Occupied France.

Dr. Remy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) came not so long ago to practice in a small French town and specializes in difficult deliveries.  He has performed a few where he saved the mother at the cost of the baby, not always the orthodox outcome.  He is also very friendly with the elderly local psychiatrist’s young wife, a friendship which her sister roundly disapproves.

People start recieving ugly poison pen letters signed by “The Raven”.  They start out as a campaign against Germain, calling him an abortionist and adulterer.  The letters build to the point where all the dirty secrets of the townspeople are revealed, escalating to a climax when a patient at the hospital is told by The Raven he has terminal cancer and commits suicide.  The town is driven to a kind of mass hysteria.  The investigation, led by the psychiatrist who is also a handwriting expert, turns up many suspects.  Is it the psychiatrist’s sister-in-law, a cold Puritanical nurse?  Is it the young postal clerk who regularly dips into the till?  How about the crippled woman Germain has a one-night stand with?  Clouzot keeps you guessing until the final five minutes of the story.

Clouzot is a genius at portraying the dark underbelly of life.  It’s just a marvel to watch how he can take a simple prop and make it look completely sinister.  Although I thought the film dragged a bit in parts, it remained suspenseful.  I love Fresnay and all the other performances are appropriately menacing.

According to Wikipedia, Le Corbeau generated controversy from the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church considered the film “painful and hard, constantly morbid in its complexity”.  The Vichy press dubbed it the antithesis of the Révolution nationale and demanded it be banned due to its immoral values. The anti-Nazi resistance press considered it Nazi propaganda because of its negative portrayal of the French populace. Two days before the release of Le Corbeau, the German-owned Continental films fired Clouzot.

Personally, I consider this film less an allegory than entirely consistent with the tenor of misanthropy present in all of Clouzot’s work. Somehow that misanthropy only adds to the delicious thrills delivered by the European Master of Suspense.  Recommended.

Trailer (no subtitles)

Five Graves to Cairo
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett based on the Lajos Biró play Hotel Imperial
1943/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/TCM DVD

[box] Lt. Schwegler: Our complaints are brief. We make them against the nearest wall.[/box]

[box] On the first day that director Billy Wilder’s hero, Erich von Stroheim arrived on set, Wilder ran to the wardrobe department to welcome him. He said: “This is a very big moment in my life . . . that I should now be directing the great Stroheim. Your problem, I guess, was that you were ten years ahead of your time.” Von Stroheim replied: “Twenty.” — from the IMDb trivia[/box]

Billy Wilder’s second directorial effort has little of his characteristic humor or cynicism.  It is, however, a very well-made and entertaining spy story, light on the propaganda for its period.

Cpl. John Bramble (Franchot Tone) has fallen behind the retreating British Army in his tank. He is the sole survivor and manages to stagger to The Empress of Britain hotel in the Egyptian Desert.  The last occupants of this hotel are its Egyptian owner Farid (Akim Tamiroff) and French chambermaid Mouche (Anne Baxter).  Everyone else has either fled or been killed in a recent German bombing raid.  Farid takes pity on the soon unconscious Bramble over the strong objection of Mouche, who resents the British for  “leaving behind French soldiers when they evacuated Dunkirk.” Then the German army arrives escorting Field Marshall Rommel (Eric von Stroheim) whose men commandeer the hotel as a headquarters.  They are well-informed on the staff of the hotel.

Bramble manages to hide himself.  Then, somewhat miraculously (given his strong American accent), he manages to convince the Germans that he is the Alsatian waiter Davos.  Davos just so happened to have been a German spy, now laying under a ton of rubble in the cellar, and is accepted by the High Command with open arms.

More Germans arrive with some British POWs, including high officers.  A la von Rauffenstein in Grand Illusion, Rommel dines with his prisoners and goads them with lots of information about his strategy.  Bramble has previously overheard talk about the five graves to Cairo.  He had planned to assassinate Rommel with a stolen gun but the British tell him that dead men have no secrets and he should try to ascertain the German battle plan instead.

So begins Bramble’s dangerous quest for the story of the five graves.  In the meantime, Mouche is trying to get her wounded younger brother out of a German POW camp. Rommel refuses her but his lying, idealogue aide-de-camp promises to try to help her in exchange for her favors.  While there is any chance that her wish be granted, Mouche is decidedly unhelpful to Bramble.

Despite the fact that the story relies heavily on the naiveté of the Germans and some incredible coincidences, it is exciting and enjoyable.  The stand-out performance is given by the fiery Baxter, who manages to maintain her French accent admirably unlike the other actors who either don’t try (Tone) or try and fail (von Stroheim).  I always like to watch Tamiroff.  I think by the time he was through he portrayed every nationality possible. The production is top-notch with beautiful low-key lighting.  The Germans, especially Rommel, are extremely reasonable for a movie of this era though we do get some patriotic, morale-boosting speeches out of Bramble by the end.

Five Graves to Cairo was nominated for Academy Awards in three categories:  Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (John F. Seitz); Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Film Editing.

Trailer

The More the Merrier
Directed by George Stevens
Written by Robert Russell, Frank Ross, Richard Flournoy, and Lewis R. Foster
1943/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Benjamin Dingle: [singing] In love or war, with people like us, we’ve got to work fast or we’ll miss the bus. If you straddle a fence and you sit and wait, you get too little and you get it too late./ What’ll you say if we see it through, you stick by me and I’ll stick by you. And our 18 children will be glad we said… / “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead./ And our 18 children will be glad we said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

Any film in which my heartthrob Joel McCrea either takes off his shirt or is in love is going to get my vote.  This one has that and much, much more.

The war has created a huge housing shortage in Washington, DC.  Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) feels it is her duty to rent out a room in her apartment.  At the same time, wealthy Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) has arrived in the city to discuss his plans to build additional housing units.  He gets there two days before his hotel reservation and is without a place to stay – until he sees Connie’s ad in the paper.  Although there is a crowd of applicants waiting on the doorstep for Connie’s return from work and although Connie had firmly decided on a female roommate, the crafty Dingle manages to muscle his way into her apartment for a week.  He promptly decides she need a clean-cut top-drawer young man and is unimpressed with Connie’s description of her middle-aged bureaucrat fiancé.

So when Sgt. Joe Carter (McCrea) shows up with the for-rent ad in his hands, Dingle rents half of his room to him.  After meeting Connie’s stuffy fiance, and despite the fact that Joe has orders to leave for Africa in two days, Dingle uses his “damn the torpedos” attitude to get him together with Connie.  It doesn’t hurt that the two are clearly ga-ga for each other.

The kissing scene in this movie cemented my love affair with Joel McCrea.  It is remarkably sexual for something from the Code years.  The way Coburn manages to make a basically pushy and obnoxious character endearing is marvelous.  Added to that is a very witty screenplay and Steven’s characteristic skill in humanizing a story.  So what that people are falling in love at the drop of a hat.  I’m completely ready to suspend my disbelief for this one.  Highly recommended.

Charles Coburn won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his wonderful performance in this film.  The More the Merrier was nominated for five additional Oscars:  Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actress; Best Writing, Original Story; and Best Writing, Screenplay.

Clip – Connie’s system breaks down

 Edge of Darkness
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Robert Rossen from a novel by William Woods
1943/USA
Warner Bros
First viewing/Errol Flynn Adventure Collection DVD

[box] Gerd Bjarnesen: What sacrifice? What are you giving up? Your life? Maybe they’ll take that from you whether you fight or not? Your farm? It isn’t yours anyway until you fight for it. Your peace? What peace is there when a body of troops can come in the middle of the night and arrest you as a hostage. To be shot, for something you never did or never even thought of. To live in constant fear. Have blackings at your windows. Talk in whispers. Have guards at your church doors.[/box]

The plight of Norway under Nazi occupation apparently was especially moving to audiences of this time.  This is the second film on the topic I’ve seen in the past few days. See my review of Commandos Strike at Dawn with Paul Muni, also a Warner Brothers project.

The opening shot reveals a town square filled with the dead bodies of Nazi soldiers and local residents.  The story is told in flashback as a couple of other Nazis investigate.

A Norwegian coastal village has suffered under Nazi occupation for a couple of years.  The only resistance the villagers have been able to muster is to contaminate fish processed at the cannery, which is owned by Karen Stensgard’s uncle, a true Quisling.  Karen’s father (Walter Huston) is the town doctor and doesn’t want to get involved in politics.  Her brother collaborated with the Nazis when he was in Oslo.  Karen (Ann Sheridan) herself is a proud patriot and is in love with fisherman Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn), who is the “leader” of the group meeting in secret to plot against the Nazis.

Then the English supply villages up and down the coast with arms.  The plotting gets more definite as the conduct of the soldiers under their ideologue commander gets more and more brutal.  The story builds up to some satisfying action scenes of the revenge of the villagers.  The film ends with President Roosevelt’s words exhorting Americans to “look to Norway” if they are wondering if war could have been averted.  With Ruth Gordon as Karen’s gentle mother and Judith Anderson as a patriot.

This movie captured my interest and is a above-average Hollywood drama.  When I am watching these things sometimes I think the portrayal of the Nazis is over-the-top for propaganda purposes.  Then I remember that they were actually far worse than anyone imagined even at the time.

I didn’t know until doing research for this film that Errol Flynn was rejected as 4-F from every branch of the service due to previous bouts with malaria and TB and a weak heart.  He saw the several war pictures he made during the conflict as a way to contribute to the war effort, according to a biographer.

Clip

Day of Wrath
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Poul Knudsen, and Mogens Scot-Hansen (all uncredited) from the play “Anne Pedersdotter” by Hans Wiers-Jenssen
1943/Denmark
Palladium Productions
Repeat viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Anne Pedersdotter: I see through my tears, but no one comes to wipe them away.[/box]

Director Carl Th. Dreyer didn’t make many films but he made masterpieces.  This is one of them.

The action takes place in 17th Century Denmark.  Anne Pedersdotter is the young second wife of Rev. Absalon Pedersson, a middle-aged devout cleric in their small town.  The couple lives with Absalon’s mother Merete who views the May-September pairing as “scandalous” and freely admits that she hates Anne.  Absalon has a grown son, older than Anne, named Martin that is expected to come home and meet his new stepmother for the first time.

On the day Martin is to arrive, the local council of clerics announces that it is arresting Herlofs Marte as a witch.  We see the old woman selling herbs gathered under the gallows as a remedy before she runs off into hiding.  She shows up at Absalon’s house and begs Anne to hide her.  She informs Anne that she protected Anne’s mother from a witchcraft charge herself.  But Marte was spotted entering the house and is dragged out of the attic kicking and screaming.

Apparently part of the deal is that the witch must confess.  We move on to some non-graphic but nonetheless horrific torture scenes. Poor Marte is defiant but terrified and demands to talk to Absalon.  She tells him she knows he falsely ruled that Anne’s mother was not a witch in exchange for permission to wed Anne and threatens to disclose this if he does not likewise protect her.  But Absalon only exhorts Marte to repent and save her soul.  Marte replies that she is not afraid of heaven or hell, only of dying.  The torture proceeds and Marte finally confesses.  She refuses to name anyone else as a witch however.

In the meantime Anne and Martin are getting acquainted.  All this talk of Anne’s mother being a witch with the power to invoke the living and the dead gets Anne wondering whether she has any powers herself.  Sure enough, she can “invoke” Martin to her side and the two begin an affair.  It is a troubled union due to Martin’s great guilt.  Anne, however, is transformed into a laughing, defiant girl who stops taking orders from her awful mother-in-law.  She admits she has speculated on the happiness that could be hers if Absalon were dead.  She resents the fact the loveless marriage has robbed her of her youth.

As Herlofs Marte awaits her execution at the stake she curses Absalon, Anne, and another clerical torturer.  These curses rapidly seem to take effect.

I don’t know how to convey the beauty of the images and compositions Dreyer creates except to say each frame seems to me to resemble a great Dutch Master painting.  He didn’t allow his actors to wear any makeup at all, saying that he would paint their faces with light. He certainly did do that.

Another thing I love about Dreyer is that his films are so thought-provoking.  They always leave me with more questions than answers. What I find intriguing about this story is that every character in it actually believes in witchcraft.  The accusations are not cynically made.  In fact, the plot development seems to suggest that something more than coincidence is at work.  But, equally, this film is about man’s terrible inhumanity to man in the name of religion.  I also find Anne’s submission at the end intriguing.  She may believe herself to be a witch but just as likely she might feel she has nothing else to live for.

Some people see this as an allegory for Nazi persecution but Dreyer always denied having any such intention.

If you have patience for a slow, sedate pace, this is truly not to be missed.

Clip – opening