Crime and Punishment (1935)

Posted on May 28, 2013 | 2 comments

Crime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment Poster
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
1935/USA
B.P. Schulberg Productions for Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

 

“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind “for every man must have somewhere to turn…” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

I loved this film, a loose adaptation of the Dostoyevsky novel.  Raskolnikov (Peter Lorre) graduates with highest honors from university and makes his mother and sister proud.  He goes on to write scholarly articles on criminology.  He has a sort of Nietzschean theory that ordinary standards cannot be applied to extraordinary men.  His articles don’t pay much, however, and he is living in desperate poverty.  He goes to a grasping, insulting old pawnbroker to pawn his father’s watch to pay the rent and while there meets a sweet, devout prostitute named Sonya (Marian Marsh).

When he discovers that his sister has lost her position and feels forced to marry a horrible beaurocrat to support herself and their mother, he snaps and murders the pawnbroker for her money.  The rest of the story follows the psychological aftermath of the crime on Raskolnikov,  the relentless investigation of the murder by Inspector Porfiry (Edward Arnold), and the redemptive love of Sonya.

Crime and Punishment 1

According to the commentary track on Mad Love, Peter Lorre agreed to star in that film in exchange for a guarantee that he could make this one.  I am glad it worked out because he is simply fantastic in it.  It is great to see him exercise a full range of emotion in a complex leading role.  My favorite parts were immediately after the crime when the character decided that he no longer feared anything.  I laughed out loud several times at the way Lorre delivered the many zingers.  He is also pathetic, tender, and hysterical as the moment requires.  Marian Marsh is very good and Edward Arnold is almost satanic as the inspector.  The film looks quite beautiful despite its low budget thanks to cinematography by Lucien Ballard.

The complete film is currently available at a couple of different obvious online video sources.

Clip

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Annie Oakley (1935)

Posted on May 28, 2013 | 2 comments

Annie Oakleyannie oakley poster
Directed by George Stevens
1935/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing

 

 

Toby Walker: Well dog my cats!

This well-made romantic biopic exceeded my expectations.   Annie Oakley (Barbara Stanwyck) hunts quail to support her family.  She is famous for being able to kill them with one shot to the head.  When the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show hires world champion sharpshooter Toby Walker (Preston Foster), Toby bets he can beat any comer.  Hotel management, which has been buying Annie’s quail, calls on Annie to challenge him. Buffalo Bill talent scout Jeff Hogarth (Melvyn Douglas) is impressed with Annie’s shooting  and with Annie and hires her for the show.   Annie and Toby become close but an accident enables Jeff to part them.  The movie also features several sequences of acts from the show.  With Moroni Olsen as Buffalo Bill and Chief Thunderbird as Sitting Bull.

Annie Oakley 2

The more movies I see that are directed by George Stevens the more taken with him I am.  He seems to bring something to all his films that makes me care about the characters.  Barbara Stanwyck’s Annie is far softer and more feminine than the character portrayed in Annie Get Your Gun but still quite believable as a sharpshooter.  There is a nice helping of humor thrown in with the romance.

Trailer

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Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Posted on May 27, 2013 | 4 comments

Grave of the Fireflies (“Hotaru no haka”)Grave of the Fireflies Poster
Directed by Isao Takahata
1988/Japan
Shinchosha Company/Studio Ghibli
Repeat viewing
#787 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 8.4/10; I say 9/10

 

[box] Setsuko: Why must fireflies die so young?[/box]

Memorial Day is a fitting time to reflect on all the lives lost to war, including those of the most innocent. American should give thanks that civilians have not suffered the horrors of world war on our shores.  This animated film poignantly brings home the cost of war to children in other parts of the world.

Grave of the Fireflies 3

The date is September 25, 1945.  The place is Japan.  The narrator informs us that he died today.  His name is Seita and he is a young adolescent boy, between about 12 and  14.  The film tells his story and that of his pre-school age sister Setsuko.

Their mother is killed at a shelter in a fire bombing; father is away at war.  The children head for an aunt’s house.  The aunt takes them in but increasingly makes it clear that they are an inconvenience.  Furthermore, she constantly nags Seita about his failure to work in the war industry or fight fires during the air raids.  Eventually, she starts withholding the best of the food from the children on the ground that they are not pulling their weight.

Disgusted, Seita decides the children will be better off on their own and takes his sister to an abandoned shelter in the country.  At first, they live a kind of carefree life but rapidly the struggle for survival takes over.  Seita resorts to stealing but even that is not enough.

Grave of the Fireflies 1

It is fortunate that this film is animated.  A live action film detailing the hardships these poor children must suffer would be just too hard to take.  This is sad enough as it is.  The animation is extremely beautiful, as is the music.  The relationship between the brother and sister is very touching and kind.  The film is not totally downbeat.  There are many lovely scenes of the children playing together.

Trailer

 

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Body Heat (1981)

Posted on May 26, 2013 | 4 comments

Body HeatBody Heat Poster
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan
1981/USA
The Ladd Company through Warner Bros
Repeat viewing
#673 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

 

[box] Matty: [to Ned] You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.[/box]

It’s 1001 Movie Sunday and the Random Number Generator has come through again, this time with a neo-noir gem from the ’80’s.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a womanizing lawyer, with few scruples and less brains, in a small Florida town.   During a scorching summer, he meets Mattie (Kathleen Turner), a seductive married lady, and decides he must have her.  So begins a plot a bit reminiscent of Double Indemnity with several differences.  It would be criminal to give anything away.  With Richard Crenna as Mattie’s husband; Ted Danson as Ned’s friend the Assistant D.A.;  J.A. Preston as Ned’s friend the police detective; and Micky Rourke as an arsonist.

Body Heat 3

A modern-day Medusa

This was screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan’s directorial debut and he worked from his own script which perfectly captures the cynicism and irony of classic film noir.  He shows a deep understanding of the noir style and sensibility and updates it seamlessly.  It is as if the film makers for such classics as Out of the Past were suddenly given a budget to shoot in color and the opportunity to make the sexual hold of the femme fatale over the protagonist explicit instead of implied.   Heat permeates the film and a kind of red glow blankets the lovers to replace some of the chiaroscuro lighting of the films noir.

Body Heat 4

The ingenious story works well on its own but is doubly delicious in the context of the older films to which it refers.  The cast is uniformly excellent.  I am particularly fond of Kathleen Turner’s Mattie, who must be one of the most thoroughly ruthless vamps in film history.  The jazz-inflected score by John Barry adds to the atmosphere.

Mickey Rourke’s scene

 

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Curly Top (1935)

Posted on May 25, 2013 | 2 comments

Curly TopCurly Top Poster
Directed by Irving Cummings
1935/USA
Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing

 

 

Reynolds: My word, miss. You *are* a package.

This is the kind of movie that gives Shirley Temple a bad name in some circles.  Elizabeth Blair (Shirley Temple) and her grown-up sister Mary (Rochelle Hudson) are orphans living in an asylum.  One day when the trustees are visiting the home, a new, immensely wealthy, handsome young trustee Edward Morgan (John Boles) espies Elizabeth singing “Animal Crackers” to her fellow orphans and it is love at first sight.  He brings the sisters to his Southhampton summer home where everyone, including the servants, goes gaga over the little moptop and Morgan falls in love with Mary.

Curly Top 1

I’m proud to be a Shirley Temple fan but this one is not good.  She is almost too cute and nothing rings true.  The songs are OK, though Boles has a couple of numbers that I could have lived without as well.

“Animal Crackers”

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The Wedding Night (1935)

Posted on May 25, 2013 | 4 comments

The Wedding Nightwedding night poster
Directed by King Vidor
1935/USA
Howard Productions
First viewing

 

I’m about ten films away from finishing up 1935.  Running into a film like this one that I had never heard of makes me glad that I stick with it until the end.  This romantic drama really impressed me.

Gary Cooper plays Tony Barrett a hard-drinking washed-up novelist who can’t even get an advance on his next book. He and his wife Dora move to his family farmhouse in Connecticut where they can live for free.  Their neighbors are a community of very traditional Poles.  One of these buys some of Tony’s acreage and Dora, who decides she doesn’t like country life, moves back to New York.  Tony remains behind and finds inspiration for his next book in Anya (Anna Sten), the daughter of his neighbors.  He also gradually falls in love with her.  But she has a strict Polish upbringing and is promised in marriage to a local boy.  With Ralph Bellamy (complete with Polish accent!) as the loutish fiance.

the wedding night 1

This is a very mature and realistic sort of romance and the performances are terrific.  It’s refreshingly different from the all too familiar plotlines of other films of the period.  I think Cooper’s performance equals or betters anything he ever did.  The movie is also beautiful to look at with cinematography by Gregg Toland and many Polish folkloric details.  Highly recommended.

King Vidor won the award for best director at the 1935 Venice Film Festival for this film, which was nominated for the Mussolini Cup.

To watch clips on TCM:  http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/290368/Wedding-Night-The-Movie-Clip-Give-Another-Pig-.html

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

Posted on May 24, 2013 | 4 comments

A Midsummer Night’s DreamMidsummer Night's Dream Poster
Directed by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt
1935/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing

 

 

 Puck: Lord, what fools these mortals be!

This big-screen adaptation of the popular Shakespearean comedy has its plusses and minuses.  The story takes place on the eve of the marriage of the Duke of Athens to the Queen of the Amazons.  Four young lovers congregate in a wood on the same night some rustics are rehearsing for a performance at the wedding feast.  The king and queen of the fairies and their minions amuse themselves by playing tricks on the mortals and each other.  With an all-star cast, including Olivia de Havilland in her stage debut as Hermia, Dick Powell as Lysander, James Cagney as Bottom, Joe E. Brown as Flute, Mickey Rooney as Puck, and Anita Louise as Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

Midsummer Night's Dream 1

This film was not a box-office success and I can see why.  It takes some getting used to.   The production is absolutely beautiful and brilliantly conveys the enchanted world of the fairies.  The film is gloriously scored to Mendelssohn’s incidental music for the play, as orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.   The cinematography by Hal Mohr and art direction by Anton Grot are spectacular.

In my opinion, the performances are much less successful.  This film was based on a Max Reinhardt production at the Hollywood Bowl and I attribute some of the truly weird acting choices to Reinhardt.  For example, the fairy characters, and especially Puck, shriek, laugh, and make strange noises to convey their other-worldliness.   It is very odd.  Mickey Rooney’s performance was downright irritating, almost embarrassing, for me.  Cagney and the other rustics are pretty good.  Of the lovers, de Havilland is the standout.

The film won Oscars for editing and cinematography.  Hal Mohr had not been nominated and was the first and only recipient to win an award based on a write-in vote.  It was also nominated for Best Picture.

General Release Trailer

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The Black Room (1935)

Posted on May 24, 2013 | 2 comments

The Black RoomBlack Room Poster
Directed by Roy William Niell
1935/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing

 

Baron Gregor de Bergmann: Perhaps you will come back from the dead to kill me?
Anton de Bergmann: [Dying words] Even from the dead!

A chance to see Boris Karloff in not one but two roles in this gothic horror tale.  The story is set in an unidentified Eastern European country in the 18th or 19th Century.  Twins are born to a baron.  This is seen as a bad omen as the baron’s house was founded when a younger twin murdered an elder twin.  Legend has it that the lineage of the house will die off the same way when a younger twin kills the elder in the Black Room.  This room is sealed.

The boys, Gregor and Anton (both played by Boris Karloff) grow up, one evil and the other good.  Gregor, the evil twin, inherits the title; Anton has a paralyzed right arm and leaves the castle unable to bear the strain of the prophecy.  Years later, the deeply unpopular tyrant/murderer Baron Gregory summons Anton back to the castle, begging for his assistance.   So begins a tale of inexorable fate.  Also starring Marian Marsh as the love interest for both twins and a local soldier.

Black Room 1

It is fun to watch Karloff tackle these roles.  He not only delineates the good and evil twins admirably but also portrays one imitating the other.  All three characters are quite different. Otherwise, the movie is entertaining, if not earthshaking, and has a nice ironic ending.

Clip – Gregor AKA Boris Karloff on pears

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Posted in 1935

China Seas (1935)

Posted on May 23, 2013 | 3 comments

China Seaschina seas poster
Directed by Tay Garnett
1935/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing

 

Jamesy MacArdle: Lovin’ you is the only decent thing I ever did in my entire life. And even that was a mistake.

Gable and Harlow reunite in another love-triangle story following their success in Red Dust (1932).  Clark Gable plays the skipper of a cruise liner/freighter on the China Sea.  The vessle is carrying a hidden gold shipment.  His girl Dolly “China Doll” Portland (Jean Harlow) has tagged along, mostly to stay in his hair it seems.  At the last minute, Sybil (Rosalind Russell) an old love of the captain’s from his days in England, now widowed, boards the ship.  The final main character is Jamesy MacArdle (Wallace Beery), whom we soon learn is the leader of a gang of modern-day Malaysian pirates.  When Gable starts paying attention to Sybil, China Doll first acts up and then gets revenge.  With Lewis Stone as a cowardly officer, C. Aubrey Smith as a ship’s company executive, and Robert Benchley as a drunk.

china seas 1

I thought this was entertaining though I wasn’t blown away or anything.  The movie has plenty of action including a convincing typhoon (two stuntmen were nearly killed as they were washed away by 50 tons of water in the studio) and the pirate attack.  Gable, Harlow, and Beery give good solid performances.  If I had not known that the actress playing Sybil was Rosalind Russell, I might not have known her.  She puts on an English accent (the only one of the American to do so, though I think all were supposed to be English) and her face looks somehow different.  Maybe it was the makeup.

I will use this as the opportunity to give my rant on “comic drunks.”  I find them terribly annoying.  This film has Robert Benchley staggering across the screen and slurring a line or two at least every five minutes.  Nothing he does advances the plot in any way.  I find constantly inebriated people more to be pitied than laughed at, and this stuff just makes me mad.  I have a similar reaction to “humor” that relies on a “comic stutterer”.  It was surely a different time.

Clip – Gable and Harlow

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The Little Colonel (1935)

Posted on May 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Little Colonellittle_colonel poster
Directed by David Butler
1935/USA
Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing

 

Walker: Looks like this old house ain’t gonna be lonesome no more.

This Shirley Temple film is memorable for a couple of fantastic tap dance sequences with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and a choral number at an African-American baptism.

It is 1870’s Kentucky.  When Elizabeth Lloyd elopes with a Northerner, her proud rebel father (Lionel Barrymore), Colonel Lloyd, disowns her.  Six years later Elizabeth and her husband Jack Sherman go out West to make their fortune and their daughter Lloyd (Shirley Temple) Sherman is made an honorary colonel by an adoring outpost regiment.  Mother and daughter return to Kentucky while father searches for a property to invest in.  Although  the Colonel is still not speaking to his daughter, little Lloyd rapidly wins the old man’s heart.  Can she bring her mother and grandfather together?  With Bill Robinson as Walker, the Colonel’s servant, and Hattie McDaniel as Mom Beck, Elizabeth’s nursemaid and cook.

Little colonel 1

The Colonel is portrayed as a cranky, angry old man and he frequently denigrates Walker, who fortunately responds with perfect dignity.  The general portrayal of African-Americans in the film is of its time.  That said, Hattie McDaniel and especially Bill Robinson are the standouts in the picture, which is worth seeing just to see Robinson dance.  The film ends with a brief Technicolor sequence.

Shirley and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tap up the stairs

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