Mini-Reflections: Film Classics

25 August 202328 September 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

The film shelf (not yet complete)

photo of a not-full shelf showing the spines of blu-rays of several movies, from The Gold Rush to The Sound of Music; there is also one DVD, for The Inspector General — The title that’s too dark to read is *Rebecca*.

I watched most of these discs before I was in the habit of writing comments to post here, and I’ve got a mountain of other movies to go through before I’ll be rewatching these (although I surely will rewatch them). So I won’t be doing a full post on them any time soon, but I will make a few quick comments from memory even though the material isn’t fresh on my mind.

More of the shelf has filled in since I took this photo, but those films already have their own entries.

•

The Gold Rush (1925/1942)

A decent DVD/blu-ray of The Gold Rush will include both the original silent version and the later rerelease with voiceover. Both are legitimate versions of the film; Charlie Chaplin not only supplied the voice narrating the rerelease, he also carefully decided on and placed all the music used (maybe wrote some of the score himself? I can’t fully recall what those bonus features said). But for me the original is the one to turn to. I for one am much more entertained by a silent movie left silent than a silent movie with narration laid on top of it where it wasn’t meant to have any.

The voiceover version is still a pleasure, though, because the essence of the original is still there. Chaplin updated the silent film without ruining it, because he knew the film and what made it wonderful, and in any case the rerelease kept the movie (and Chaplin’s renown) in the public imagination and is probably why we can still see the original at all.

•

Metropolis (1927)

Metropolis was pretty long when first released but was trimmed considerably for wider distribution, and the cut scenes were long believed to be lost; much of the cut material has been rediscovered in some degree of watchability. The film is a milestone not only in special effects but also in the history of film preservation, one of the early occasions when people realized there was a need to preserve.

I’ve seen this film in three different renditions: two or three times in the shortened once-standard edit; a version with some bits restored; and now the most-scenes-restored-sorta version. The material (re-)added for the longest version makes the story much more coherent, notably providing a reason for the scientist to make his robot look like this woman. I’d have to watch it again to recall whether any particular restored bits slow things down too much, but my recollection is that the plot is greatly improved.

The movie in any of the available cuts has an obvious socialist message of “it’s bad for callous rich people to exploit the working class,” but the solution given is not “revolt and take over” (we see how a careless revolution can endanger workers’ own families), the answer is “you need understanding and feeling between the classes.” Still it’s mainly the upper class that needs to do the work of looking and listening and adapting.

The film is German, but the scenes of rich people partying while the world is more or less ending remind me of what I know of the U.S. during the Roaring Twenties and the Stock Market Crash.

By today’s standards Metropolis can seem simplistic or naive—or, let’s say, unsubtle—but it was a thundering groundbreaker of science fiction and cultural commentary in the movies.

•

King Kong—remarks here

•

Rebecca (1940)

It’s my understanding that Hitchcock didn’t want to follow the novel faithfully, but the producers forced him to—except in one critical point which the morals office would not have tolerated (but Hitchcock probably would have preferred).

I might not even know who Daphne du Maurier was if not for this movie. Because the film is so good I read the novel, and was rather surprised by that important difference.

I think the constraints on Hitchcock in this case resulted in a much better film than he would’ve given us if left to his own devices.

The female lead of the story is hard to cast and play. If she’s too mousy we won’t believe she would catch Maxim’s notice or dare to go around with him at the resort, but if she’s too lively we won’t believe she’ll be so intimidated by Mrs. Danvers.

Maxim is kind of a jerk. It’s true that the man of the estate is not going to have a lot of in-depth interaction with the housekeeper, certainly compared to his wife; and as a product of his class he will take it for granted that you simply give orders to servants and they carry them out. But he can’t be this oblivious to what’s happening or this unaware of his housekeeper’s personal character. Surely on some level he knows his new wife is being bullied. He even sees first-hand in the broken-figurine incident that she’s afraid of Danvers. He consciously chose someone the opposite of the imposing, self-assertive, rule-making Rebecca, which means at the very least he should be aware she’s unprepared for her new position. Is Maxim enjoying the situation, perhaps amused by his inept wife’s childish insecurity? Does he like seeing her flounder? It’s hard to think ill of anyone played by Laurence Olivier, but still.

This film is laden with nonverbal signals, dripping with meaning in looks and gestures and silent interactions between people.

As an aside, we also see a proper response to blackmail.

•

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

“Shall we flip a coin?”

“Why didn’t you sell tickets?!?”

In addition to smart, sharp one-liners, three Hollywood greats colliding, a plot richer than you’d think a “screwball comedy” would have, a sassy younger sister eager to see trouble, and overall fun expertly dancing with overall drama, it always strikes me that in an era when drunkenness was often a source of cheap humor, this film treats Dex’s alcoholism quite seriously. He himself delivers the occasional remark about his “glorious thirst,” but it’s unmistakably sarcasm from a place of his own hard experience. Other characters might be treated lightly when they indulge too much, but Dex’s drinking is a problem and he knows it and he explicitly turns down every bit of alcohol offered to him, because it’s essential to his future that he stays sober, no exceptions.

Also, from multiple angles: two wrongs don’t make a right, and being partly right doesn’t make you wholly right.

•

Cat People (1942)

As I understand it, the director, Jacques Tourneur, did not want this film to have a visible monster at all, but the higher-ups (studio or producers) insisted on having a cat onscreen in the office-room attack scene, and would’ve preferred a lot more of the same. In this case I don’t think the movie is harmed by that profit-conscious interference. For me Cat People has exactly the right balance: plenty of suspense, lots left to the imagination, a focus on the psychological effects of thinking you might be a killer whether you really are or not, and a higher standard of storytelling than repeatedly having people scream while a costume-creature attacks them, and it does all this without sitting on the fence of “Is she or isn’t she, make your own interpretation!” To me there is just the right amount of monster, taking a position but showing enormous restraint.

(That can’t be said of the 1982 remake, which shrugs aside story in favor of the attack gimmick and laughable levels of nudity. Although the pool sequence is still extremely effective.)

•

Curse of the Cat People (1944)

This film refuses to be distracted by the pull of the title monster. It is definitely a sequel to Cat People but has nothing to do with people turning into cats. Curse knows what it means to do and it does it, no matter what the studio executives undoubtedly wanted it to do. I’m glad the original had a touch of cat monster in it, and also glad the filmmakers didn’t allow anyone to force monsters into the sequel. (Yes, there is the question of a ghost, but it isn’t here to threaten or frighten, and there are no human-feline transformations.)

•

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Good songs, an enjoyable story, the importance of family, childhood mischief, Judy Garland.

At a glance, this movie might be seen as “well-to-do white families having wholesome fun,” but the parts about the younger daughters are based on a real person’s autobiography and add a certain layer of complexity regarding children’s lives. Traffic-accident injuries, morbid games with dolls, kids running loose on the streets Halloween night playing pranks—still nothing shocking, but showing more rough edges to childhood than Hollywood musicals would usually acknowledge.

The film’s origin in an autobiography is also why you seem to have two main characters—Tootie comes from the book and lives out those adventures, while Esther was created to pull in audiences and let Judy Garland do what she could do so well.

From the bonus features I learned there was a scene cut following the trolley song showing Judy Garland’s character and her love interest at the fair, and I suspect it would’ve made better sense of a few little snippets elsewhere in the film if they’d left that in. But, so be it.

•

The Inspector General (1949)

Basically Danny Kaye plays somebody who wanders into town and is mistaken for an important dignitary. This gains him a lot of perks but also means certain people want to kill him. I remember poison, assassins, corrupt local officials, and people locked in boxes.

In college a friend and I had a great time watching this movie. Apart from that association I’m not sure a physical copy would have a place on my shelf, though it is fun and worth a watch. After all, it’s Danny Kaye.

•

All About Eve (1950)

Bette Davis, willing to play an actress unwilling to admit she can no longer play young women.

We see a skilled manipulator who does quite well using other women but makes critical misjudgements of two men.

The story is driven by the fact that Margo is too old to play twenty-year-olds, and yet that story is largely about Margo growing up and becoming an adult. She has to find her maturity in order to relate to herself, her career, and her would-be husband.

It’s a time when a columnist had the power to create or end careers.

Addison DeWitt is a truly awful person. He appears calm, cool, and sophisticated throughout—until someone looks down on him, and his violent reaction shows how insecure and fragile he really is. He’s a bully who exercises power over people to prove to himself he’s important. Of course he writes about The Stage and not The Screen, but I’ve always associated the character with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, who could ruin a Hollywood career with a few paragraphs, in addition to Walter Winchell. (The movie was released in 1950, so McCarthyism was barely getting underway and wasn’t the issue here.)

Oh yeah, Marilyn Monroe has a brief part here too, and she’s pretty funny.

•

Singin in the Rain (1952)

This film is so, so, so, much fun. Singing! Dancing! Laughing! Hijinks! Satire of the movie business! Romance! Charm! Charisma! Toeses! Everything about it is just about perfect, except—sorry, Gene Kelly devotees—the long, long, long dance sequence of Kelly’s character-within-a-character-outside-a-character looking for a job in New York. Yes, yes, I know it’s a Gene Kelly movie so people wanted to see him dance, but this is still a movie and it has a plot and a story which skids to a complete and jarring halt when this sequence intrudes with a premise that makes no sense. (This saves The Duelling Cavalier how exactly? Really?) I love this movie dearly and when I watch it I fast-forward through the whole nine(?) minutes of the hoofer doing “Gotta Dance” at cardboard talent agencies.

But oh the rest of it makes me happy.

•

Roman Holiday (1953)

Audrey Hepburn, ah. A timeless tale—meaning you’ve seen the premise elsewhere—but timelessly charming and moving. She thinks she’s fooling them, playing normal young woman, but she isn’t, although she is winning them over. Some things can’t be, and she has to give things up and they choose to give things up, and without saying all the words they all understand. She’s perfect for the role—European but of undefinable nationality; looking young enough to try something stupid but old enough she’s been weighted with responsibility; luminously beautiful as a princess “should” be, yet not so glamorous or stately she couldn’t walk through Rome unidentified; innocent and sophisticated at the same time, believable in welcoming dignitaries and in eating gelato on the street.

And I can’t forget to note the glories of having this filmed on location: real Rome, tall and ancient all around the actors, nearly tangible as you watch.

•

Creature From the Black Lagoon—remarks here

Oklahoma—remarks here

West Side Story—remarks here

The Music Man—remarks here

•

Charade (1963)

You’ll hear it called “the greatest Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made,” which sounds about right except it isn’t really fair to the actual director, Stanley Donen.

I love the theme music by Henry Mancini and find myself clicking it out with my tongue probably once a week or more (TOK-tok-tok t’tok-tok-t’tok-tok).

Audrey Hepburn is a delight as always. Cary Grant is wonderful as usual (even if he needs to be twenty/thirty years younger for this role).

Mystery, suspense, humor, one-liners, danger, lies, double-crosses, a missing fortune, Hepburn playing a character stretched and strained until she doesn’t know which end is up, and naturally that infectious theme: it gets almost everything right.

In some bonus feature somewhere I heard Audrey Hepburn complain that one of the funniest lines in the movie—one of hers—is stepped on by the instrumentation at the very, very, very end, and I have to agree with her. If only they’d waited two more seconds and let her words come through cleanly!

•

The Sound of Music—remarks here

Reflections: King Kong (1933)

1 January 20233 January 2023 ~ Not Alison ~ Leave a comment

photo of the cover of the Warner Archive Collection blu-ray edition of the original *King Kong* film

I’ve seen the original, the 1976 version, and Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake. The best special effects are in Jackson’s version, not surprisingly, but in most other ways the original King Kong is superior to its later imitators.

And in fact the original’s special effects are far better than what you should expect from 1933. Willis O’Brien not only made supposedly impossible shots possible, he turned a monster into a character.

The Premise

In all the versions I’ve seen, the King Kong story has at its center a preposterous notion: that a gigantic gorilla has any interest in a human woman except perhaps as something to chew and swallow.

One of the many remarkable things about the film is that it doesn’t simply ask you to believe that an ape is interested in a woman, it shows you that Kong cares about her, and you believe it.

And yet you can’t justify Kong’s interest in any natural way. Yes, for a moment or two maybe Kong would be curious about this odd creature, bleached white unlike all the other humans he’s seen, puzzled enough to pause and poke at her before deciding what to do—but the answer, reasonably, would have to be either “eat” or “throw away as too risky to eat.” But you don’t have much of a movie that way, so you simply have to go with the idea or give up.

Unless we invent a story nowhere hinted at in the film that as a baby, Kong was cared for by a human woman—it would not be a white woman, but an islander—after his own gorilla mother was killed (presumably by a dinosaur). If infant Kong was nurtured by a human woman, up to the point where he could fend for himself in the wild, or maybe when that woman was herself killed somehow, then he could indeed have some obsessive (completely non-sexual) desire to possess and be around a human woman. The fact that Ann is white would be little more than a temporary distraction—him thinking, Okay, she looks a little weird, but, all right, no, this is basically the same as the mother-creature. Carrying Ann back to his lair and setting her up on a ledge would then be the same thing he’s done with all the “sacrificed” women over the years. He brings them home and dimly expects that they will fill the niche his foster mother once did, satisfying a garbled psychological need.

(Just think—that kid at the orphanage in Cider House Rules might’ve been on to something.)

Each woman would last a while but eventually expire—maybe he fails to feed her properly or she accidentally falls off the ledge or he picks her up too roughly or she fails to meet his expectation somehow so he gets mad and smashes her. The only thing unique about Ann’s case is that this time people come after her, armed with guns, gas bombs, and little concern for consequences.

Racism

Viewers today ought to be prepared to face head-on the issue of racism in King Kong.

Most immediately evident are the islanders, presented in stereotypical ways with appearance, customs, and actions probably chosen to signal “primitive.”

But it’s fair to note that many of the condescending and bigoted things the movie tells us about the islanders (like the idea that they’ve been degraded and lost the civilization that the wall-builders possessed) come out of the mouths of white men thoroughly ignorant of their history and culture, and we can easily suppose that what we’re hearing is the result of these men’s own biases, arrogance, and sense of cultural superiority, not anything remotely like an accurate assessment of the islanders.

In other words, we can often pin the racism not on the movie itself but on the characters, and observe that they are being people of their time, idiotically spouting things they don’t know because it suits their hyper-inflated ideas about white culture. Instead of pointing at the islanders and saying, “Wow, they’re savage!” we can point to Denham and the sailors and say, “Wow, they’re clueless and prejudiced!” if we choose to.

Logically the people of the island ought to be Pacific Islanders, or conceivably Indigenous South Americans, and not Africans, but the movie seems to have relied largely on African American actors to play these parts (and maybe a few white men painted to look black). In some shots the filmmakers have apparently made a special effort to emphasize people’s hair and facial expressions in ways that are brief but cringeworthy.

On the other hand, note that the islanders are entirely ready to throw spears at Kong and fight him, hopeless or not. They are not trapped in any superstition about the sanctity of an “ape god” as we might expect to find in a movie of this era. They know very well Kong is a threat and that he is not so sacred they must be passive before him.

Also some of the shots of islanders facing Kong have clear parallels in the shots of New Yorkers facing him. Kong reaches into a two-story hut to pull out a nameless victim; Kong reaches into a hotel window to pull out a nameless victim. Kong throws a hut wall that lands on islanders in the foreground; Kong throws an awning that lands on New Yorkers in the foreground. Kong puts an islander in his mouth; Kong puts a businessman in his mouth. The island defenders hurl spears; the city defenders fire pistols. There’s no difference in bravery or panic or commotion, only a difference in technology.

•

Charlie the Chinese cook speaks in stereotypical language, and his role on ship is subservient, but in his actions and behavior he’s never a caricature or a joke. In fact when he finds a pivotal clue he immediately knows what to do and correctly takes the initiative without hesitation or doubt, setting in motion the next portion of the plot. He’s a capable, intelligent individual, not just a servant to white people.

•

In addition to all that is Kong himself. Yes, he’s a gorilla, not a human being, but the racist comparison of Africans and African Americans to apes has a long history, and this is an ape with an obsession for a white woman, and such obsession is another old racist trope. You can watch and enjoy the movie on its surface terms without getting the idea that Kong symbolizes black men or a black man, but when you’re aware of racist slurs and imagery it’s hard to believe the filmmakers weren’t playing with this notion on some level, though it would be more as a way to heighten white viewers’ anxiety than as any kind of direct allegory or analogy. (There’s no reactionary social message here like you can find in Pierre Boule’s Planet of the Apes novel or the movie[s] made from it.)

King Kong doesn’t try to tell us what the islanders are thinking when they go out of their way to sacrifice Ann. Viewers may assume—and may have been expected to assume—that it’s because her whiteness makes her a “superior” sacrifice, but this is hardly a necessary conclusion. It may simply be that since the outsiders ruined the first ceremony, one of the outsiders should become the replacement sacrifice. Maybe the islanders also thought that although this woman looked bizarre to them, Kong might like a little variety, and it meant no one from their own community needed to die.

On the other hand, we do not actually know that this is a human sacrifice meant to appease the giant ape; for all we know, the local woman who was nearly delivered to Kong was being punished for some terrible deed, and that gong they rang to summon him was sounded only when they happened to have a capital punishment to mete out.

•

In any case we ought to marvel at and respect the resilience, ingenuity, and intelligence of the islanders and their ancestors for creating a viable human community in such an intensely inhospitable place.

Natural History

It is hard to imagine any natural history that would allow giant gorillas to develop on an island populated by dinosaurs, even if we accept giant gorillas as biologically possible. (There was, at least, gigantopithecus, apparently a massive prehistoric orangutan.) I would propose that the dinosaurs, reptiles, and insects are native to the island but gorillas are not. Giant gorillas, let us imagine, are native to some other island (or mainland) and were brought to Skull Island by the humans who journeyed there—possibly as a necessary condition for settlement. It may be that without giant gorillas protecting them they would not have been able to establish a community in this hostile place. Suppose that these humans had tamed giant gorillas in their previous home, and brought several along as breeding stock, but at some point in intervening history the gorillas became feral and mostly died out, leaving Kong as probably the last survivor.

Miscellaneous

You’d think the path to the captive sacrifice would already be clear of trees, unless it has been a LONG time since the last one.

Most of the time when you use a dummy for a human body it looks silly, as when the brontosaur-type lake creature grabs people in its mouth. But when Kong shakes the men off the log and the “bodies” land on the rocks below, the limp, flailing limbs kind of work, uncomfortably.

Kong has brute strength, but he doesn’t defeat a tyrannosaur with that. He wins by using intelligence and skill, able to outfight his deadly opponent with dodges and wrestling moves.

Ann screams too much (with provocation, yes), and you can see that some of this has been added to the soundtrack when Fay Wray is not mouthing any screams.

Kong’s scale is inconsistent. How big IS he compared to a human being? His size shifts around even on the island.

I’m pretty sure that instead of skirting around Kong and climbing down a cliffside on a vine, I would go back the way I came, on foot.

It’s not really clear how Kong locates Ann in the city. How does he know what building to look in? Was he able to track Driscoll-taking-Ann just as Driscoll tracked Kong-taking-Ann?

In 1933 I’m not sure I would expect a police chief to think of airplanes without prompting from a civilian.

Kong is tough. It takes repeated passes of those planes shooting him before he starts wobbling even a little.

Notice there is not the slightest hint in this film that Ann feels any sympathy for Kong or is sorry for him being killed. There are, though, displays of Kong’s tenderness towards her and maybe even a recognition—at the end when he picks her up the last time—that he should set her down so she won’t be harmed, regardless of what happens to him. And even if Ann is terrified or traumatized, we the audience sympathize with Kong. We have seen him as a feeling, living being with yearning and regrets and anger and posturing and curiosity, and we can be sorry that things turn out the way they do.