By Ed Garea
It’s
the beginning of February 1 and the countdown has officially
begun: How many days left to March 3, when the “31 Days of Oscar”
ends? At least this year TCM has made it a little more interesting by
jumbling up the lineup a bit, including more foreign films. But,
still, I’ll be glad when the whole thing is over and we return to
the regular mix.
STAR
OF THE MONTH
This
month has no designated star, unless it’s “Oscar” himself. So
to honor Oscar and the Academy, TCM is showing an original two-hour
documentary, And the
Oscar Goes to . . . on
February 1 at 8:00 pm. Should you happen to miss it – and also have
forgotten to record it – there will be repeat showings on February
2 (9:00 pm), February 7 (11:30 pm), and February 10 (5:00 pm).
OUT
OF THE ORDINARY
Despite
the fact that it threatens to be more of the same old, same old,
there are actually some movies on tap that are rarely seen, and these
are the ones we will feature.
February
3: I can think of no better movie to spend my evening with
than director Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1953 masterpiece, Gate
of Hell. And even though I own this on DVD, I’ll
still be watching. It is a wonderfully written, directed and
photographed story of Moritoh (Kazuo Hasegawa), a samurai who saves
Emperor Kiyomori (Koreya Senda) during an attempted coup by
disguising Kesa (Machiko Kyo), one of the ladies of the court, as the
emperor’s wife and leading her out of the city, creating a
diversion that allows Kiyomori and his family to escape and the coup
to collapse. As a reward for his actions the samurai asks his emperor
for the lady’s hand in marriage. The request creates an
uncomfortable situation, for Moroitoh’s would-be bride is already
married to Wataru (Isao Yamagata), one of the emperor’s most
esteemed warlords. However, instead of backing off gracefully,
Moritoh stubbornly clings to his request, imploring Kesa to leave her
husband, and later challenging Waturu to release his wife. And it is
this stubbornness, and the accompanying change in Moritoh’s
personality, that ultimately leads to tragedy for everyone involved.
Kinugasa,
a former actor who made his early directorial reputation with
German-expressionism influenced films, was entrusted by his studio,
Daiei, with making the studio’s first serious foray into color
films, in this case utilizing Eastmancolor, with the film being
distributed abroad – quite a challenge. I’m happy to report that
not only was the attempt a success, but that Kinugasa’s use of
color photography greatly enhanced the film, especially in regard to
the battle sequences, which I can’t help but think were influential
on Mel Gibson when he filmed his battle sequences for Braveheart.
As
the star, Hasegawa delivers a chilling performance as the samurai
whose monomania goes from comical to disturbing as the film
progresses. However, the one to watch in Gate of Hell is
Kyo for her beautifully nuanced performance as a woman torn between
two suitors and lacking the empowerment to make a choice of her own
free will. It was yet another feather in the cap of an actress whose
mark on Japanese cinema also included wonderful turns in Rashomon,
Ugetsu, and Floating Weeds. I feel that,
because of the international acclaim (such as winning the Grand Prize
at Cannes) that Hollywood felt obligated to throw it a bone, which
came in the form of an honorary Oscar for being the Best Foreign
Language film first released in the United States during 1954
(whatever that means), and a statue for Best Costume
Design. (Please.)
February
4: A morning and afternoon of great foreign films –
beginning and ending with the two films Pope Francis alternates as
his favorite films of all time. At 6:00 am is Fellini’s La
Strada, a great choice, followed by The Burmese
Harp (8:45 am), The Virgin Spring (10:45
am)), Closely Watched Trains (12:15 pm), The
Battle of Algiers (1:45 pm), Z (3:45
pm), and ending with the Pope’s other choice, Babette’s
Feast (6:00 pm). I say ‘watch ‘em all,’ but if you
can only see perhaps two, the two I would recommend are The
Burmese Harp and The Battle of Algiers.
The
Burmese Harp (Nikkatsu, 1956): From director Kon
Ichikawa comes one of the most mesmerizing and touching anti-war
films ever made. Set in Burma during the last months of World War 2,
it stars Shoji Yasui as Private Mizushima, a soldier captured by the
British. He volunteers for an almost suicidal mission: travel as an
envoy to a nearby cave in order to persuade a garrison of Japanese
soldiers to surrender. The unit refuses, and in the battle that
follows, Mizushima is badly wounded. While a monk nurses him back to
health, Mizushima undergoes a profound religious and spiritual
transformation, returning to the killing fields disguised as a
Buddhist monk intent on honoring his deceased comrades with a proper
burial.
Realizing
that a film such as this could be too much for an audience to
experience and absorb, Ichikawa wisely divides it into two parts, one
tracing the journey of Mizushima from soldier to monk, and the other
following the fate of Captain Inouye (Rentaro Mikuni), Mizushima’s
commanding officer, as he tries to fill his troops with pride and the
hope of returning to and rebuilding Japan.
The
role of music in this film cannot be stated enough. Mizushima is a
harpist and Inuoye is a former musician who uses music to both
inspire and comfort his men. Though the film is a bit long at 116
minutes, there are enough unforgettable images contained within to
jostle almost anyone‘s aesthetic sense.
The
Battle of Algiers (Rialto, 1966): Colorize this
film and leave off any titles and references and one might think it
was a documentary of Iraq in 2005. (It was reputedly shown in the
Pentagon.) But it’s Algeria in 1956 and the French are trying to
keep what’s left of their colonial empire and at the same time lick
their wounds from the beating they took in Vietnam by crushing the
Algerian revolt. Simply stated, this is one hell of a film, one of
the most effective pieces of agitprop since the days of Eisenstein
and Riefenstahl. In fact, the French government complained that the
film’s politics were anything but fair and balanced. But it’s not
the choosing of sides that disturbs me. Rather, it’s the ethical
dilemmas the film raises: simply, can one side be right and the other
wrong if both participate in the senseless slaughter of civilians?
Watch for the scene where a reporter asks one of the rebels about the
ethics involved in using women’s shopping baskets to hide bombs.
The rebel answers quite calmly that they do not have planes with
which to drop bombs on their enemies, so “if you’ll give us your
planes, we’ll hand over our baskets.” Of course, anyone outside
of Neville Chamberlain would quickly realize that even if given the
planes, the rebels would still employ shopping baskets to deliver
bombs. The difference being that a plane can be spotted beforehand,
while a shopping basket hides in plain sight. As a matter of fact,
the film can be seen in general as a how-to manual of domestic
terrorism; no wonder the Pentagon reportedly screened it.
However,
when we set aside the trees and look at the forest, we see a film
concerned not with military victory as such, but with the winning of
hearts and minds, an essential point if the French are not to lose
their most symbolic colonial possession. However, the times they were
a-changing, and the French no longer had the heart to fight yet
another protracted war, especially with the ascendancy of the Third
World into the global community, and the revolution in communications
which made it impossible to pursue a dogged attempt to rid Algeria of
its rebels when the whole world was not only watching, but actively
supplying the “underdogs” in the struggle. Like Vietnam, there
was no real economic imperative for France to continue the war,
especially with the French public rapidly tiring of seeing it on
their television screens. This is a very disturbing film, but one
that needs to be seen. Too bad enough didn’t see it before we beat
the war drums to punish Saddam.
Babette’s
Feast (Danish Film Institute/Orion, 1987): For
those looking for insightful commentary, go to Dave’s comments in
his “Best Bets” section of the TiVo Alert. There is certainly
nothing I can add to it, except for a historical note. Based on Isak
Dinesen’s (the pen name of Karen Blixen) story of the same name
from her collection of tales, Anecdotes of Destiny, it
was only the success of Out of Africa (also
based on Dinesen’s works) that persuaded backers to open their
pocketbooks for the project. Despite being one of Denmark’s most
famous writers, her works were not regarded as commercially viable.
February
12: How about a prehistoric melodrama for the ages? Their
Own Desire, from MGM in 1929, certainly fits the bill.
Get this plot – Lally (Norma Shearer) is the life of every party
and the apple of her father’s (Lewis Stone) eye. As quick with a
riposte as with a polo mallet, she’s the ideal of young men and the
object of jealousy by the young ladies. She leads a sheltered and
pampered existence. Until one day Lally and Mom (Belle Bennett)
discover Hal is having a discreet affair with younger model Beth
Cheever (Helene Millard). Lally and Mumsy are crushed, and head to
the family’s summer home on Lake Michigan to recuperate.
Into
Lally’s life bounds young, handsome, charismatic Princeton man Jack
(Robert Montgomery), who bowls over Lally. (Did I mention he was
handsome?) This is it, thinks Lally – until she discovers that he
is the son of the very woman that Dad is hitting the hay with back
home. And right after she agreed to marry him, too. And so they agree
to part, but not before taking one more boat ride together, during
the course of which – naturally – there is a huge storm. The
following morning they are reported missing, and it is this that
drives Hal and his gal pal to realize that their affair is not nice.
Of course, the kids later turn up safe and sound, and Hal and Beth
decide to return to their spouses.
Written
by Frances Marion, this movie is an unintentional howler, given its
pedigree in the early, early days of sound. Considering all the
scenarios involved in the film, I get the feeling it was originally
intended as a silent, but the changing market dictated it be made
with sound. Shearer got an Oscar nomination out of it, though she was
later said to cringe every time someone brought up the movie. And
with good reason: The film may be with sound, but the acting is
definitely over-the-top, and by a large margin at that. But try it;
this is an excellent example of the problems Hollywood encountered
with the sudden change to sound.
PSYCHOTRONICA
So
you think because this is month-long salute to Oscar, there wouldn’t
be any psychotronic films, do you? Well, you’d be wrong by more
than the proverbial country mile. The most common misconception about
psychotronic films is that they are either horror or science fiction
and are low-budget stinkers, besides. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Psychotronic films are defined by a combination of
factors: subject matter, stars, and the director and producer. They
are also landmarks of the pop culture in which they were made, either
cashing in on a trend, or starting a trend. I’ll give two examples
of how a movie can be seen as “psychotronic”:
A
lot of eyebrows would be raised upon seeing Casablanca as
an entry in Michael Weldon’s The Psychotronic Encyclopedia
of Film, but let’s examine it a little further. First, it is,
at bottom, an exploitation film, made to cash in on the meeting of
FDR and Churchill at Casablanca. The script was based on a failed
play and constantly revised throughout shooting, with the emphasis
not on quality, but on speed. Make it fast so Warner Brothers can
cash in on the current events. Second, it stars such psychotronic
luminaries as Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Claude Rains.
Bergman and Bogart also made their share of psychotronic films as
well. Although Weldon will often label a film as psychotronic if a
psychotronic star is in it, I find that doesn’t hold as a universal
rule. For instance, Weldon includes Ninotchka because
of the presence of psychotronic legend Bela Lugosi, but his role is
small to the point of almost being a cameo; his character has little
influence on the plot, except as a Soviet official who sends
Ninotchka to Turkey to rein in her comrades, thus setting the table
for her defection to the arms of Melvin Douglas.
While
Alfred Hitchcock directed many psychotronic films, not every film
could be categorized as such. Films such as The Manxman, Rich
and Strange, The Skin Game, and Mr. and Mrs.
Smith, to name just a few, are not. Here we lack the necessary
subject matter.
So
here is a listing of the Psychotronic fare over the next 15 days:
February
1: Of Mice and Men (8:00
am), Wuthering Heights (12:00
pm), The Wizard of Oz (6:00
pm).
February
2: The Lost Weekend (8:00
pm), Spellbound (2:15
am).
February
4: The Virgin Spring (10:45
am), Rebel Without a Cause (4:15
am).
February
5: Notorious (1:30
am).
February
6: Caged (11:30
am), The Bad Seed (1:15
pm), What Ever Happened to Baby
Jane? (3:30 pm), Wait
Until Dark (6:00 pm), Morgan:
A Suitable Case for Treatment (12:30 am).
February
7: Night Must Fall (6:30
am): Robert Montgomery gives a splendid performance as a young
handyman who charms his way into dowager Dame May Whitty’s heart
and becomes her caretaker. Less charmed is Whitty’s niece, Rosalind
Russell, watching with disbelief and disgust as Montgomery wheedles
his way into the cantankerous Whitty’s heart, something Russell,
the penniless niece, is quite unable to do. Instead she slowly
becomes convinced that the outwardly cheerful Cockney has a much
darker side. Could it have something to do with the hatbox he always
totes around? It seems much too heavy to hold a hat. The fact that a
beheaded woman’s body was found nearby only adds to her suspicions.
Yet, despite her distrust, she is strangely drawn to him and begins
to fall for his charm. She begins to play a game of give and take
with Montgomery with Whitty as the prize, with the game slowly
gaining both speed and intensity until the finale. The backstory on
the film is that Montgomery wanted the part while Louis B. Mayer was
against it. But Mayer relented, figuring that Montgomery’s fans
would be so distraught over seeing their idol in such a role that it
would embarrass him back into step with the studio. Instead,
Montgomery landed a nomination for Best Actor, showing he could
handle all sorts of roles. To quote Weldon on Montgomery’s
effectiveness: “Once you’ve seen Robert Montgomery here as a
charming cockney psycho carrying around a head in a hat box, he
starts to seem demented in all his films.”
February
8: The Maltese Falcon (10:30
am).
February
11: Baby Doll (1:45
am).
February
14: The Man With the Golden
Arm (2:30 am), Bad
Day at Black Rock (5:00 am).
February
15: The Big House (10:30
pm).
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