Flickers in Time

Assassin of Youth
Directed by Elmer Clifton
Written by Elmer Clifton and Charles A. Browne
1937/USA
BCM Roadshow Productions
First viewing

[box] Tagline: MARIHUANA – a Puff – a Party – a Tragedy![/box]

What?!  An exploitation flick with a “plot” and “acting”?  Heresy, I say.

Joan Barry’s aunt dies and leaves her a fortune.  The catch is there is a morals clause in the will.  This should be no problem for the church-going Joan.  However, town slut and dope pusher Linda Clayton will inherit if Joan is excluded and Linda sets out to trick Joan at every turn.  In the meantime, ace reporter Jack Howard has been sent to town to do an article on this headline-worthy story and later an investigative piece on the marijuana plague ravaging its youth.

This is by far the “best” of the 30’s marijuana exposées I have seen thus far. Unfortunately, that also means there is the least camp and unintentional hilarity.  We do get a classic character performance by the town gossip who rides around town on a motor scooter looking exactly like Margaret Hamilton in her Miss Gulch costume.  The old codger who plays the soda fountain owner is also a hoot.  Anyone going for the advertised “orgies” would have been sorely disappointed.  There’s some brief flashing of garters during a jitterbug scene but that’s about it.

Trailer

The Dybbuk
Directed by Michal Waszynski
Written by S.A. Kacyzna and Andrzej Marek based on a play by Sholom Ansky
1937/Poland
Warszawskie Biuro Kinematograficzne Feniks
First viewing

dyb·buk [Sephardic Hebrew dee-book; Ashkenazic Hebrew, English dib-uhk] noun, plural dyb·buks, dyb·bu·kim [Sephardic Hebrew dee-boo-keem; Ashkenazic Hebrew dih-book-im] Jewish Folklore. a demon, or the soul of a dead person, that enters the body of a living person and directs the person’s conduct, exorcism being possible only by a religious ceremony.

It took me some time to get into this filmed Yiddish folk tale but, once I did, I found it richly rewarding.

As the story begins, two friends, Sender and Nisan, vow that if one has a male child and the other a female, their two children will marry.  A mysterious messenger warns that making a vow with regard to the future is a sin but they ignore him.  The friends go on to solemnize their vow with the village “wonder rabbi”.    Sender goes on to have a daughter, but his wife dies in childbirth.  Nisan has a son but he drowns on the day the child is born with the vow on his lips.

Later, Sender becomes a very wealthy man.  His daughter, Leah, is 18 and a beauty. Chanan, a poor Yeshiva student, arrives in their village and becomes a friend of the family. He and Leah are drawn to each other. Knowing that Sender is looking for a rich match for his daughter, Chanan begins to study the Kabbala and evoke evil spirits to win Leah.  He is unsuccessful and kills himself when Sender arranges a marriage with another.  On the day of the wedding, Leah, who is still in love with Chanan, goes to the cemetery ostensibly to visit her mother’s grave.  There, Chanan’s dybbuk takes possession of her body.  The wedding cannot take place and the “wonder rabbi” must be appealed to for an exorcism.

This took some time to get into because the culture depicted was very foreign to me and the beginning of the film had few subtitles and the ones that there were were often of the frustrating white-on-white variety.  However, I immediately appreciated the gorgeous solo and choral singing.  Later, as the story took shape I became involved in it, largely due to the acting of the two young lovers.  The wedding scene, with its many dances and songs, is a real treat as well.

This was a melancholy watch as I thought about how close this way of life, and indeed probably all the people involved with the film, were consigned to complete annihilation.   How lucky we are that this was preserved.

Clip – the Dance of Death

The Pearls of the Crown (“Les perles de la couronne”)
Directed by Sacha Guitry
Written by Sacha Guitry and Christian-Jacque
1937/France
Cineás
First viewing

[box] “The little I know I owe to my ignorance.” — Sacha Guitry[/box]

This long historical shaggy dog tail lacks some of the sparkle of The Story of a Cheat but is still amusing.

The narrator (Guitry) traces the history of the four perfectly matched pear-shaped pearls in the English crown from their origin in the court of Pope Clement VII through a complicated series of events that had them switch hands from Catherine de Medici to Mary Stuart to Elizabeth I to Queen Victoria.  A group of men then undertakes to discover what happened to three other pearls of the set that were “lost”.  These have an even more romantic and bizarre history.

Most of the French character actors from the classics appear somewhere or other in this multi-character extravaganza.  Some play several parts.  It’s a fun watch, if perhaps a little slow in places.

Clip – Sorry, no subtitles

Wee Willie Winkie 
Directed by John Ford
Written by Ernest Pascal and Julien Josephson based on the story by Rudyard Kipling
1937/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing?

[box] Priscilla Williams: You see, the colonel never had any little girls around. All he understands in soliders. So I’ve decided to be one. Then he’ll like me. How do I start, Coppy?[/box]

John Ford brought some strong production values to Shirley Temple’s adventures in the British Raj.

Folks have been trying to bring peace to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for hundreds of years without success.  They didn’t have the ultimate secret weapon.  Little Priscilla Williams (Temple) comes with her widowed mother to live with her grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith), who commands a fort on colonial India’s frontier with the hill tribes.  The gruff old man is all business, so Priscilla tries to win him over by becoming a soldier with the help of blustering but tender-hearted drill sargeant MacDuff (Victor McLaglen).  “Priscilla” doesn’t sound very much like a soldier’s name, so he dubs her Wee Willie Winkie.

Early on, Priscilla makes a friend of rebel tribal chieftan Khoda Khan (Cesar Romero) when she returns a talisman he drops.    Later, nefarious forces exploit that friendship. Can Priscilla capture her grandfather’s heart and bring peace in her times?  There is but one correct answer to that question.

This is very nice to look at and all the performances are good.  It is the rare Shirley Temple film with absolutely no musical numbers.  (She does sing a verse of “Auld Lang Syne” at a poignant moment.)  Shirley Temple lovers should check it out.

Clip

Knight Without Armor
Directed by Jacques Feyder
Written by Lajós Biro and Arthur Wimperis; Adapted by Frances Marion from a novel by James Hilton
1937/UK
London Film Productions
First viewing

[box] I have outlasted all desire,/ My dreams and I have grown apart;/ My grief alone is left entire,/ The gleanings of an empty heart. – from “I Have Outlasted All Desire” by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Babette Deutsch (recited by Countess Alexandra in film)[/box]

I loved this thrilling romance/adventure of revolutionary Russia.

It is Petrograd, 1913.  Englishman Ainsley J. Fothergill (Robert Donat) has lived for six years in Russia and speaks the language like a native.  The authorities take offense to an article he wrote about the czarist government and tell him he has two days to leave the country.  He complains to a fellow expatriate and the man gives him an option — take a job as a British agent with a Russian identity and infiltrate a revolutionary group.  The pay is good but if he is caught the British will deny his nationality and existence.  Fothergill somewhat reluctantly accepts this offer in order to stay in his beloved adopted country and becomes Peter Ouronov.

Peter successfully infiltrates the group.  When one of its members takes shelter in Ouronov’s flat after the attempted assassination of a government minister, Peter is arrested and sent to Siberia.  Meanwhile, we have learned that the minister’s daughter is Countess Alexandra Vladinoff (Marlene Dietrich) and, at the time of the attempt, both were on the way to her marriage with an officer.  They later marry and the officer is killed in WWI.

Revolution comes to Russia and political prisoners are released from Siberia.  Peter becomes an assistant commissar in the district in which Alexandra lives.  The population rises up and ransacks her mansion and lines up dozens of servants and others to be shot. At the last minute, the commissar orders Peter to take Alexandra to Petrograd for trial.  So begins an adventure in which the two are caught between enemy lines in the Russian Civil War and in constant peril.

I had no idea what to expect and I was absolutely wowed by this despite a couple of minor flaws.  I don’t know if Marlene Dietrich has ever turned in a more restrained performance. If the film makers had only made her less glamorous, she would have been perfect as the frightened aristocrat.  As it was, it stretched credulity that this woman was roughing for days on end in the forest in full make-up.

What to say about Robert Donat?  It goes without saying that his performance was sensitive and engaging.  I read that he was very ill at the time this was made but he is also incredibly swoon-worthy here.  He may be achieving Gabin-like heights in my book.

Feyder didn’t make enough movies, I think.  The shots are very beautiful.  This was one of those films that I knew I would like about two minutes in before either of the stars had appeared just from the way it was framed.  Assisting in the absolutely first-class production were the score by Miklos Rosca and cinematography by Harry Stradling with camera operator Jack Cardiff.  The only problem with the construction was the ending.  The story just kind of petered out.  It was one thrilling adventure after another. Then the climax was rushed and unresolved.  Recommended.

I watched this film on the Criterion channel of Hulu Plus.  It is also currently available on YouTube.

Fan trailer