By Ed Garea
Thus
begins TCM’s annual salute entitled “31 Days of Oscar.” There is little
to recommend for the week of February 1-7 except for the final two days, when
we have a seeming bounty of most interesting films.
February 2
7:00 pm Warner Bros. 90th Anniversary: Tales from the Lot (2013)
The
overall quality of TCM’s documentaries is high, so even though I haven’t seen
it, I don’t expect a dog. It’s an abbreviated history of the studio featuring
interviews with executives and stars.
February 6
8:00 pm All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal, 1930) - Director: Lewis Milestone.
Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Ben Alexander, Arnold Lucy, and
Beryl Mercer. B&W 145 minutes.
The
years between the wars saw a number of anti-war films produced. What
Price Glory from Fox and The Big Parade from MGM viewed
World War I not as a heroic mission, but rather as a tragedy that should have
been avoided.
This
film, adapted from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, follows a group of young
German students, talked into enlisting by the frenetic pro-war speeches of
their teacher. The story is entirely told from their viewpoint and follows
their growing disillusionment as they witness the death, mutilation, and
insanity all around them. Any preconceptions they had about “the enemy,”
Germany’s mission, and the “rights and wrongs” of the conflict disappear to be
replaced by anger and confusion. Watch for the scene where Paul (Ayers)
mortally wounds a French soldier and then cries bitterly as he tries to save
his own life while trapped in a shell crater with a corpse. Also of note is the
scene where a bitter Paul returns to his old school and confronts his jingoistic
teacher, who is busy indoctrinating the next class of potential recruits. The
film retains its edge until the very end, never letting up or wavering in its
stark look at the tragedy of war and the effect it has on those fighting in it.
Look
especially for Ben Alexander, later famous as Officer Frank Smith, Joe Friday’s
partner on the original Dragnet, as Kemmerich.
Needless
to say, the Nazis were not thrilled with this film. At screenings in Germany
they disrupted the film by tossing stink or smoke bombs into the theater. When
they took power in 1933, this was among the first films banned by Goebbels.
10:30 pm Imitation of Life (Universal, 1934) - Director: John M. Stahl.
Cast: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Louise Beavers, Rochelle Hudson, Ned
Sparks, and Fredi Washington. B&W 116 minutes.
By
today’s standards, Imitation of Life is simply dismissed by as
an example of the racism that so dominated Hollywood before the Civil Rights
Movement. But this is more than just a simple story. Based on the Fannie Hurst
novel, Claudette Colbert stars as a newly widowed mother who teams with her
maid, played by Beavers, to open a waffle house. They hit it rich later on the
strength of the waffle recipe that came from Beavers.
But
wealth does not buy happiness, at least not in a Fannie Hurst soaper. It comes
with a price, and in this case the price is the trouble both have with their
daughters. Colbert’s daughter, feeling neglected by her mother, rebels and at
one point tries to seduce her mother’s fiancée (William). Beavers’s daughter
(Washington) is a light-skinned African-American who passes for white. She is
deeply ashamed by the fact her mother has very dark skin and completely
disassociates herself not only from her mother, but also from the black
community.
Even
though critics – both liberal and conservative – attacked the film upon its
release, on closer examination, several points stand out. For one thing,
Stahl’s 1934 version is much more progressive than the 1959 remake directed by
Douglas Sirk. For instance, Colbert and Beavers are single mothers making
progress in an industry traditionally run by men. Even more important is the
sub-plot addressing Washington’s discomfort with her mother – a point ignored
by other films of the era. In fact, the light skinned versus dark skinned
division among African-Americans would later pop up as a musical number in
director Spike Lee’s 1988 musical, School Daze. The daughter
(Washington) was also a break with the traditional casting mindset of the time.
Hollywood usually cast white actresses in these roles. Think of Jeanne Crain
in Pinky, Helen Morgan in the 1936 and later Ava Gardner in the
1951 versions of Showboat, and Susan Kohner in the 1959 remake of Imitation
of Life.
No,
it’s not a groundbreaking departure by any means: Beavers is still solidly
subservient though Colbert’s character treats her as an equal. But it is at
least a departure from the sort of beyond demeaning roles usually assigned to
black actors. Watch this for the performance of Louise Beavers. That she wasn’t
even nominated for an Oscar is the real crime.
12:30 am The Bride of Frankenstein (Universal, 1935) - Director: James Whale. Cast:
Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger, Valerie Hobson, Una O’Connor, E.E.
Clive, Elsa Lanchester, O.P. Heggie, Gavin Gordon, Douglas Walton, and Dwight
Frye. B&W 80 minutes.
By
1935, Whale was tired of horror. He made his mark on Hollywood with Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and The
Invisible Man, all of which helped Universal stave off bankruptcy. Whale
wanted to expand his repertoire (in the next year he would direct the
musical Showboat), but the Laemmles wanted another horror film, a
sequel to the immensely popular Frankenstein. Whale held out for as
long as he could, but finally caved in. Why? Due to his track record of
profitable film after profitable film, Whale was given the title of producer/director.
He also had an ace up his sleeve: he would make this the most outrageous horror
film yet with a large injection of black comedy.
The
result, The Bride of Frankenstein, was not only the rare specimen
that surpassed the original, but it also went down as one of the greatest films
ever made. It certainly was the best horror film ever made. The Bride begins
with Mary Shelley (Lanchester) telling her latest story to her husband Percy
(Walton) and their friend Lord Byron (Gordon). As the story unfolds we learn
that the Monster survived the fire and Dr. Pretorius (Thesiger) appears with a
most unusual pitch to Henry Frankenstein (Clive), who is recuperating from his
meeting with his monster. Meanwhile, the Monster meets with a blind
hermit (Heggie) who teaches him to speak, a scene marvelously sent up in Mel
Brooks’s Young Frankenstein. He also makes the acquaintance of
Pretorius, who entices him with a plan to create a mate for him. Henry, who
wants nothing to do with Pretorius’s idea, is blackmailed when Pretorius has
the monster kidnap Henry’s bride, Elizabeth (Hobson, who was only 17 when the
movie was shot). The result is that The Monster gets his bride (Lanchester as a
strange doppelganger), but things go spectacularly bad.
Look
for Whale’s fun with religion, including a bizarre crucifixion scene with The
Monster and the sub-text of The Monster’s meeting with the hermit. A trivia
note: Valerie Hobson was married in real life to British Secretary of State for
War John Profumo, notorious for his affair with prostitute Christine Keeler in
a scandal that led to the eventual downfall of the Harold Macmillan government.
February 7
11:30 am My Life as a Dog (Skouras Pictures, 1987) - Director: Lasse
Hallstrom. Cast: Anton Glanzelius, Anki Liden, Manfred Serner, Tomas Von Bromssen,
and Melinda Kinnaman. Color 101 minutes.
One
of the best films about the chaos of childhood and its effect, My Life
as a Dog concerns the adventures of a 12-year old boy sent to a rural
village in Sweden full of fellow eccentrics while his mother convalesces. Young
Ingemar (Glanzelius) is a sweet child full of energy and a creative sense of
mischief that frequently goes out of control. The pleasures and pains of
Ingemar’s life are beautifully balanced: the joys of everyday, the confusion of
being a child in an adult world, and looking ahead to each new day. It’s funny
and touching without becoming mauldlin. Look for the scene where he accompanies
a buxom blonde as a chaperone while she poses nude for a sculptor. Director
Hallstrom began his career directing music videos, most notably for ABBA, and
his first feature film was ABBA: The Movie (1977).
1:30 pm Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) (Lux Films, 1949) - Director: Giuseppe DeSantis.
Cast: Silvana Magnano, Doris Dowling, Vittorio Gassman, and Raf Vallone.
B&W 108 minutes.
Walter
(Gassman) and Francesca (Dowling) are petty criminals fleeing the police in
Northern Italy. The two decide to split up and Francesca joins a group of women
rice field workers, where she waits for Walter. Here she meets the voluptuous
Silvana (Magnano) and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier Marco (Vallone). When
Walter shows up, he soon devises a plan to steal the harvested rice, even
though this would bring further hardship on the already impoverished workers.
Shot
on location, the film is firmly within the boundaries of the prevailing
Neo-Realist movement of the time. DeSantis manages to keep what could well
become an overly complicated plot in check with some excellent camerawork and
sharp editing. While it quite doesn’t reach the heights of The Bicycle Thieves or German Year Zero, it still manages to
deliver solid drama supplanted by solid performances from its cast,
particularly Dowling.
5:30 pm I Compagni (The Organizer) (Lux Films, 1964) - Director: Mario Monicelli.
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Gabriella
Giorgelli, Vittorio Sanipoli, Folco Lulli, Elvira Tonelli, and Bernard
Blier. B&W 130 minutes.
This
is a gritty, well-directed story about exploited textile workers in turn of the
century Italy and their fight for better working conditions. Pautasso (Lulli),
Martinelli (Blier), and Caesarina (Tonelli) are the leaders of the workers.
Professor Sinigaglia (Mastroianni), presumably sent by the Socialists to help
the workers organize their strike, joins them and planning of the movement
begins.
Management is unrelenting in their stance: the only concession they
will consider is the lifting of the suspension of Pautasso (Lulli), one of the
early leaders. As the strike drags on, strikebreakers are called in, violence
breaks out and Sinigaglia goes into hiding. However, when foreman Baudet
(Sanipoli) convinces Martinetti that a return to work would be seen as a sign
of strength, Sinigaglia comes out of hiding to rally the workers. They march to
the mill where the militia fires on them, killing a 15-year old striker. The
professor is arrested and the workers return to their jobs. Even though nothing
has been decided, the workers’ strength is felt for the first time.
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