Author: Not Alison

Reflections: West Side Story (1961 film)

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photo of the cover for the 50th Anniversary edition blu-ray of the 1961 film West Side Story

• Urban grime plus vibrant primary colors and luscious pastels.

• I got reeeeally tired of the overture for West Side Story. (I didn’t mind the Oklahoma overture, which is just as long. Maybe the Oklahoma music is just more fun?) The background of hatch marks over shifting colors didn’t help; every time there was a dramatic color change I expected the movie to begin, but then nothing happened. I also wanted the marks to gradually accumulate, becoming more and more recognizable as the city skyline, but they don’t quite do that.

• The dances in West Side Story are never a suspension of the plot, they build it: the dance numbers are combat, fueling the tension, or they’re romance, slowing to let us bathe inside a feeling.

• I’m a fan of Natalie Wood, but it’s uncomfortable watching her pretend to be Puerto Rican. Some other Puerto Rican parts were played by non-Latinx whites too. It’s disheartening. Surely there were Latinx dancers around to fill more of these roles, and the idea of darkening people’s skin in order to fake (or emphasize) race is just cringeworthy, even when it’s not meant to make fun of anyone. That said, I don’t think the filmmakers were deliberately excluding anyone, the way so many other Hollywood productions did. I think they were focused on hiring great dancers, but had the mindset that painting white people brown was acceptable so there was no need to hunt harder to find Latinx dancers for all the roles. And either way the characters are shown as human beings with hopes and fears equal to those of the white characters.

And we actually get more of the emotional lives and everyday existence of the Puerto Rican characters—through the lens of Maria and Anita. Tony has a work life, but the Jets are always being Jets, and we know nothing of what their girlfriends do apart from them.

• The immigrant experience in West Side Story means dreams of opportunity confronted by closed doors, limited chances, frustration, and racist cops who hate all teens and all immigrants but hate the non-white ones the most.

• There’s prejudice everywhere in the film. When the police lieutenant breaks up the war council in the middle of the movie, he sends away the Sharks—and quickly proves he despises the Jets too, but thinks they’re on the same “side” in the larger picture. He tosses ethnic slurs and insults at the Jets, making clear he considers himself, but not them, properly American. Despite that, to him Puerto Ricans are a much greater threat, an invading menace that will take over everything if they’re not stopped. In his mind Poles and Italians and presumably other non-Anglo whites are beneath him but are still better than Puerto Ricans.

This police lieutenant’s family name is Schrank; he’s often accompanied by Officer Krupke. One might speculate that the two of them faced prejudice themselves during World War II by people accusing them of being German.

Tony’s given name is Anton. He goes by Tony . . . to assimilate.

The film has a prominent character who appears to be transgender. We don’t know for certain how this person would identify in today’s terms, but it certainly looks like what’s going on runs deeper than “I’m gonna act like a guy so I can hang out with the Jets.” This character is constantly reminded that “she” must play by the rules for females (like leaving when it’s time for “war talk”); dismissed with remarks like “Go put on a skirt!”; and told loudly, “You’re a girl!” None of this is necessary to the plot; this person’s place in the story could have easily, and more obviously, been filled by a comfortably male boy simply too young to be involved with gang business. Someone made a choice to show us identity difference.

• Early on, Anita is suspicious of Tony and doesn’t trust him—but gives him a chance for Maria’s sake. After the deaths, when she delivers the famous “A boy like that” lyrics, she sings to Maria, “Stick to your own kind!” (which is Anita’s own kind too). Even then, she is willing—with visible bitterness—to help Maria and Tony. But the near-rape in Doc’s store is too much. Even before she says it out loud, you know it: these white boys have proven everyone right about how bad they are. Their actions exemplify what Bernardo, her parents, and countless other people in her world have been telling her for years: these whites can’t be trusted, they’re brutes, they hate and despise anyone who looks like her, they will abuse her if given a shred of a chance. Now that’s all she’s going to see when she looks at them and people like them.

It hardly matters whether they meant to simply mime a rape or actually commit the act, because in that moment she could not know where they would stop. The effect on her is terrorism.

It’s a shocking scene, even from the side of the Jets. We’ve known from the first finger-snaps that these guys are tough, dangerous punks ready to fight, fully committed to intimidating people. But as a viewer I wouldn’t have believed they would violently handle Anita as they do. Verbal assault, yes, but not this. Yet at this point in the film they’ve been pushed past a limit. And she isn’t just a random Puerto Rican woman; she was Bernardo’s love, and they can’t forget what Bernardo did. Because of events they helped ignite, the Jets have turned into people who would do this.

One of the grand themes of the story is escalation.

• West Side Story is a tragedy not just of two lovers, but of two whole groups so concerned over so little, in a constant passionate struggle to cling to things that mean nothing to the rest of the world.

“Fighting over a little piece of street is so important?” asks Doc.
“To US it is!” is the answer.

“It’s all that I have,
Right or wrong,” says a song.

Reflections: Oklahoma (1955)

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cover of the blu-ray for the 1955 film Oklahoma
Not quite as high as a elephant’s eye, here.

My first exposure to the musical Oklahoma was to the soundtrack, which I’m sure is hardly unusual. The songs “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin” and “O-o-o-o-o-klahoma” were planted into my consciousness sometime before I was aware of it, just part of the atmosphere of growing up in U.S. culture (I was born in the mid-1970s; the songs are surely less omnipresent now).

I was in college (mid-1990s) before I became acquainted with any more of Oklahoma. A good friend of mine played the movie soundtrack on a long car trip, and I enjoyed most of it. I was kind of horrified, though, at “Pore Jud Is Daid.” Without knowing the storyline, I could only suppose they were singing at a funeral for someone who had died, and it just seemed monstrous to mock the deceased this way.

Of course, when I finally watched the movie (on VHS tape) I discovered Jud was not dead, he was just being sung to by his mortal enemy/rival, and was even one of the two voices singing the lyrics. It’s still pretty macabre, though, in context, and quite vicious in its humor.

Rewatching the movie on Blu-ray I was struck by how relentless the songs are in the first half of the film. They just keep hitting one after another, with barely any breathing room between, and each one could easily be a favorite because they’re all so well written and performed. (Well, okay, the five-minute instrumental overture might not be a favorite, but it’s still an enjoyable piece if you know the songs and aren’t impatient for the film to begin.)

The movie is two and a half hours long, and I kind of planned on watching until the intermission and saving the rest till the next night, but I couldn’t. I had to get to the end, despite having watched the film three times over the years. I knew what was coming, but I needed to see it to be at ease the rest of the night.

There are two main reservations I have about the movie. Both are problems you see in many musicals from the 1950s and 60s.

First, the seemingly endless, wordless dance sequence: fifteen minutes where the story screeches to a halt for a scene designed primarily to showcase the dancing itself. This time around, I actually found the first two or three minutes captivating, seeing how graceful and elegant the ballerina’s movements were, but again, it lasts fifteen minutes, not three. Oklahoma makes some effort to make this dance portion relevant—grudgingly I can admit that it shows the extent of Laurey’s feelings about Jud, and there is a need for that. But the sequence goes on and on and on. . . .

Second, true to its time, there is no inclusivity. Positive portrayal of divergence in sexual orientation or gender identity was unimaginable then; showing someone who had a disability was possible but doesn’t happen here; including a few ordinary people of other races should have been possible but again doesn’t happen. (Historically, by the way, there were African American and Latino cowboys.) The cast is entirely and utterly white. The most you can say about such musicals is that by not including anyone else, they avoid spreading demeaning stereotypes.

In Oklahoma there is a wrinkle: the character who calls himself Ali Hakim (pronounced “hack-um”). He’s a traveling salesman peddling things out of his horse-drawn cart who says he’s from Persia. This could be seen as yet another time some white guy plays somebody of non-European ancestry, denying a role to someone from that ancestry, made worse by the film-maker not even bothering to find a name that’s Persian . . . but this character is a con man. I’m pretty sure the audience is not supposed to believe for a second that he’s actually Persian, even if the other characters never mention any doubts. That means we’re expected to find this practice low and disreputable, the act of a huckster lying to make himself “exotic” and more memorable to his unsophisticated customers.

And there’s plenty of unsophistication around. The song “Kansas City” in particular takes delight in poking fun at the characters singing it. It has this marvelous aspect of suggesting that the awe expressed over the existence of 7-story buildings and “gas buggies goin by theirselves” is naive and provincial not just to the modern audience but also to people of the story’s time period who lived in cities. Poor Will is convinced progress has gone as far as it can go. Obviously we know better, but I’m pretty sure the folks he saw in Kansas City on his trip knew better too, even then.

There are three main female characters in the story: Laurey, Aunt Ella/Eller, and Annie. (There’s a fourth named woman, a man-stealer with a horrendous laugh, but she only has a few scenes.) 

Ado Annie is not exactly a positive portrayal of womanhood. You could look at her and see a flighty airhead easily swayed by sweet words and maybe too free with her affections. You could also look at her and see a woman unashamed of her own sexuality and desire, seeing nothing wrong with enjoying kisses (or more) as opportunities come her way. But it would be quite a stretch to make her a champion of female sexual liberation, because that kind of requires more intelligence in choosing your partners than she’s shown as having. “I will love who I want to, no matter what people think!” is not the same as “I’ll kiss anybody who asks prettily!”

The movie isn’t explicit about how far Annie goes with these multiple men she’s apparently diverted by. Is it only kissing she’s “guilty” of? Within her context, kissing around would be blameworthy, but perhaps not scandalous enough to make her socially unacceptable. And she still moves in polite circles and nobody blinks at her donating a food basket for the auction. Will, who wants to marry her, doesn’t act like he believes she’s sleeping around. It’s more like he’s mad at her for flirting when they’re just short of engaged.

And yet, maybe it’s significant that she isn’t inside the house with 98% of the other young women on their way to the social. And then there are rumors about her losing her bloomers. And she “cain’t say no.” It seems like the story wants to have things two ways at once, just as much as the character does.

Next, Aunt Eller. She’s resilient, determined, full of both good sense and endurance, and ready to have plenty of fun on the proper occasions. She might say “two women can’t run a farm by themselves,” but according to what we know about her life in the film, two women can make sure their farm gets run, without selling it or letting a man take over. If she and Laurey need a hired man to keep it going, well, they’re still the ones in charge and plainly doing well. (“It’s a good year for corn and there’s money in the bank,” Aunt Eller notes.)

Then Laurey, the female lead. When we first see her, her verbal sparring with Curly is delightful. It’s just fun to listen to them go back and forth. But . . . they go too far. It’s debatable whose teasing is to blame, but Laurey is the one who actually takes a step she can’t easily undo and has to regret it. But it’s not because she’s foolish or ditzy or trying to use some “feminine” trick calculated to make her man jealous; it looks for all the world like she’s just mad, and human, and she doesn’t need any time at all to realize the mistake. 

Later, in one of those great songs, Laurey proudly declares that she won’t weep and wail for a man who drops her; then she’s reminded the man she loves is right that moment outside with someone else, and she starts to cry . . . but doesn’t, and reasserts that she won’t. Later still, in a carriage with someone who tries to grab and kiss her against her will, she shoves him away and takes action—perhaps not the best action, since the horses go into a frenzied gallop that might leave the carriage, and her, smashed against a tree; but as soon as she has a chance she literally takes the reins herself and is then in control.

Laurey isn’t perfect or helpless either one. There are things to admire about her and things to shake your head over. She is, in that way, well-rounded and believable. She feels human.

I would like to caution her, though, that if the large, angry man you’re afraid of is heading your direction, the right response is not to walk into the shadows away from the crowd.

Finally, does Oklahoma pass the Bechdel test? I suppose it depends on how strictly you apply it. Near the end Laurey and Aunt Eller have a conversation which is occasioned by concern over a man’s fate, but what’s said is not specifically about men—it’s about bearing up and keeping on, and how life brings good and bad and you’ve got to face both.

Bottom line: Oklahoma has omissions characteristic of its time, it has a female character who’s arguably worrisome, and it includes a grueling ballet sequence, but otherwise it shines and makes me happy.

Reflections: Creature From the Black Lagoon

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As a child in the 1980s I was fascinated by the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He was creepy and dangerous but still had a kind-of-cute face, he was totally different from vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein’s monster—and he had a glow-in-the-dark action figure (from Remco). I never saw the movie, however, until I was out of college, when I watched the entire trilogy.

So before starting the Blu-Ray Legacy Collection recently, I already knew the first two movies were good and the third one was a shameful disgrace.

cover of the blu-ray case for Creature From the Black Lagoon: Complete Legacy Collection

The original movie: Yes, you have to overlook the story’s ignorance of proper paleontology, the absurdity of that fossil hand sticking straight out of the cliff, and most obviously the question of why an amphibious fish-man is interested in a flipperless, scaleless, unclawed female mammal. But if you can do that, it’s quite enjoyable and still more sophisticated than most 1950s monster/horror movies. There’s an actual plot here, with the right mix of creature attacks and interpersonal conflicts and suspense, plus characters having understandable reasons for what they do.

But you can view the scene where the Creature watches Kay swimming, and swims along underneath her, in different ways. You could choose to see it as irrational and foolish, because he should have no interest in a human, or you can choose to receive it with the pathos the cinematography suggests, leaving aside the logic of it and taking the emotion instead. We can’t be absolutely certain the Gill-Man is the last of his kind, although the humans suggest this several times; but it does seem plain that he is alone. Could it be that he’s never looked on any female of his own species (if he hatched from an unattended egg, maybe not even his mother), and this is the first time he’s ever seen a human woman—someone roughly his own size, the same basic body plan (bipedal, two-armed, upright posture) and here she is swimming beautifully, much the way he does, performing pirouettes, turns, and twists in his native element. Just suppose for a little while that human hormones are sufficiently like those of his kind that when the water carries traces of her to his animal senses, his biology recognizes her as female, not male, and he is so lonely and isolated that the evidence of his eyes about her external differences does not matter. He might not think of her as outwardly attractive, and that might be irrelevant.

Revenge of the Creature (movie 2): Well . . . not quite as good as I remember.

One, bubbles from the air-hole in the top of the costume are starkly obvious in several scenes, something I didn’t notice in the first film (even though I’ve heard people mock that very thing).

Two, I was bugged by the way they put the Gill-Man in a tank full of saltwater fish (like sharks) and had him swim in the ocean, since the first film was very explicit that a branch of the Amazon River came to a dead end in the Black Lagoon, meaning it was not a saltwater lagoon (the word lagoon can be used of both saltwater and freshwater bodies). Not to mention that the creature was originally seen upstream along the Amazon, and followed the boat into the Black Lagoon.

Three, not only does the Gill-Man become obsessed with a human woman, he only wants this exact woman and inexplicably manages to track her to her hotel after he runs off from the sea-quarium where he’s been in a tank since he arrived unconscious in Florida.

Revenge of the Creature has its problems, but it’s still a legitimate sequel, and again much better than most 1950s monster/horror movies.

Both of the first two movies deserve credit for showing us intelligent, articulate, capable, and (mostly) brave scientist women pursuing more than just romance. (Although Kay’s job plays such a small role in the first movie you might forget it once they’re on the boat.) I’m sure it’s an attempt to appeal to male audiences more than a desire to reject stereotypes, but they effectively shut out any suggestion that being smart and determined and scientific is incompatible with attractiveness—or in any way undesirable.

You can fault the movies for still insisting that women need to be glamorously attractive, and for showing these two in swimsuits at every occasion, and yet the filmmakers could have found some other excuse to wedge them into the storyline, but chose to present them as educated and perfectly qualified for the work at hand.

In the second movie there’s a conversation mid-story where the female lead and her fellow-scientist boyfriend note that men don’t have to choose between family and career, but women do. He says, “I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s just a fact.” And she answers, “It doesn’t seem right to me.” Which is never contradicted.

Also of note in the second movie is that the supporting male character, who is clearly more handsome than the male lead and has a decidedly better physique (you see both of them shirtless in swim trunks, sometimes side-by-side), does not end up with the beautiful woman.

Both movies suffer from overuse of the “Look! A creature!” theme (ba-ba-BAAAA!!!), and if I had complete control of the audio track I would also quietly brush away a certain amount of female screaming.

The Creature Walks Among Us (movie 3): With the first two movies there were things you had to overlook, like certain facts and practices of science. For the third movie you need to overlook even more science, along with . . . whatever you liked about the first two.

All right, yes, there are twenty-five minutes of a Gill-Man movie in there: a dive (including obligatory woman-in-swimsuit), shots of the Creature swimming, a hunt for the Creature, an attack by the Creature, and then . . . we’re into some other kind of movie, with forty minutes left. 

a simple chart showing how the timeline of the movie The Creature Walks Among Us is divided up

And the Gill-Man is gone, changed into something without scales, without claws, without gills, but suddenly bulked up like an NFL player. His face is reminiscent of a peeled Gill-Man, but it’s not really him. If the filmmakers wanted to make me feel sorry for him, they did succeed in that, because the way he’s mutilated in this story is tragic.

I can’t imagine why they would take an iconic look already proven to please audiences and change him so drastically . . . except a desire to milk the title for more sequels without spending so much on makeup and costuming. Which didn’t work, since there were no more Creature From the Black Lagoon movies.

There are no female scientists in Walks Among Us. Instead you’re offered the unhappy wife of a rich man. At the start she appears to be a spoiled, petulant, rebellious wife looking to cozy up to some other man, a woman who married for money and is now bitter about it. Curiously, though, over the course of the movie she becomes increasingly sympathetic as you see what a grade-A jealous swine her husband is, and you begin to realize she’s not on the prowl at all. Then to complicate things a little more, another character goes out of his way to say the husband is not simply jealous but mentally ill (“disturbed” is the word used) and in need of help. So maybe his behavior, foul as it is, is slipping beyond his control, and we can feel some pity for him too—perhaps with the right help he wouldn’t be acting this way anymore and would see how wrong he’s been?

The subplot about this couple is to me much more interesting than the wreck that was made of the monster movie.

All three films deserve high marks for the underwater photography, which was first-rate. In addition, Ricou Browning, the man in the Creature suit underwater (uncredited on screen; other actors, also uncredited, played the Gill-Man on land) deserves particular praise because his swimming was graceful and elegant, and he did it in costume toe to scalp, which must have been horrendously difficult.

And it should not be forgotten that the Gill-Man looks amazing. The visual design, by Milicent Patrick, is intricate, menacing, and decidedly amphibious, while retaining human-ish personality and a face that can be seen as longing, wounded, and enraged, conveying understandable emotions. It’s hard to design a monster face that can carry all that despite having a limited range of actual motion. And then the physical suit was top quality. This was not done on the cheap. The actual costume has the detail and texture of reality, in and out of the water, and is as convincing as a costume can be for a creature you know does not exist. Some air bubbles here, a glimpse of a fold there, the eyes look a little off in some shots? Maybe, but those things last a second or two, and the effect sustained the rest of the time is one of realism. He’s heavy on land and graceful in the water, and the Creature does not look out of place walking around that lagoon or swimming within it.

I’ll always love the character, and I won’t accept the original movie being lumped in with “B-grade” monster movies. I’ve seen plenty of those, and Creature From the Black Lagoon is a considerable step above them.