QUAI DES BRUMES (Marcel Carné, 1938).
A deserter (Jean Gabin) takes refuge in Le Havre, where he meets and
falls in love with a young woman (Michèle Morgan) who is struggling
to escape from a dominating guardian (Michel Simon).
A popular film genre emerged in France during the late 30s - a dark
aspect of what was called "poetic realism," it combined romance with
a a fatalistic outlook, usually portraying lovers who unite for a brief
period of happiness before being separated forever by forces beyond
their control. The prominence of this genre during a time of disillusionment
and foreboding - fascism looming on the horizon - is a fascinating example
of how fictional form expresses social and political conditions. This
film, the third collaboration between Carné and the great screenwriter
Jacques Prévert, is the best of this type - and in my opinion
the best picture they made other than Les Enfants du Paradis.
Most movies try to lend their stories a tone or a mood. Quai des
Brumes lends its mood a story. The plot, observing the classical
unity of time by taking place in a 24-hour period, is the barest of
sketches, a pretext for the feelings of sadness, world-weariness, and
desperate hope. Gabin shows why he was France's greatest star. The rootless
hero beautifully combines conflicting traits of stoicism and tenderness.
His scenes with Morgan are romantic in the iconic fashion of classic
cinema, yet with more soulfulness than the Hollywood variety. Pierre
Brassuer does an excellent turn as a two-bit gangster.
The picture benefits from the marvelous set design of Alexandre Trauner
(who would later work his wonders in American movies). It was all shot
in a studio, but you would hardly guess that - the fog-shrouded seaport,
the dismal little inn where Gabin hides out, the streets and shops of
Le Havre, are all so lovely and convincing. For viewers who are familiar
with melancholy, Quai des Brumes, and the genre of French cinema
of which it is the prime example, is moving and strangely comforting,
letting us know that others have felt the same way, and have transformed
that feeling into art.
ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY
(William Dieterle, 1941).
In early 19th century New Hampshire, a farmer (James Craig) burdened
with debt, sells his soul to the devil (Walter Huston) in exchange for
gold. But wealth soon corrupts him, and it's up to the great lawyer
Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) to free him from his infernal contract.
This is an adaptation of a Stephen Vincent Benet tale called "The Devil
and Daniel Webster." (Benet helped with the script.) The Faustian story
is handled with considerable verve by Dieterle, who balances light and
shadow, historical versimilitude and fantasy, with a style that is consistently
engaging. The photography (veteran cameraman Joseph August) is first-rate,
and the film also boasts a magnificent score by Bernard Herrmann, fresh
from his debut in Citizen Kane the same year, that combines Copland-style
Americana with the darker moods that are more characteristic of his
work (it nabbed him his one and only Oscar).
The one real weakness is the central performance of Craig, a less than
distinguished actor who tends to go overboard when he tries to emote.
The plot takes us through a rather dizzynig succession of changes in
his character - involving a bizarre, supernatural temptress (Simone
Simon) as counterpart to the incredibly (one might say impossibly) devoted
wife (Anne Shirley) - and he's not quite up to the task. But it's a
rousing yarn nevertheless, and Arnold is quite good in a role that was
made for his kind of talent - the brilliant, slightly pompous, yet courageous
Webster.
Finally, there is Walter Huston, who plays "Scratch." Even if the movie
had nothing else to recommend it, it would be worth seeing just for
his performance. Here is one of the greatest actors of his time, playing
the devil with an exuberance and wit that is a pure delight to behold.
He does not interpret the role as a menacing villain, but as a confident,
tireless, self-satisfied trickster. With his eyes alone, he can convey
mischief, mockery, or astonishment. The final scene - a perfect blending
of narrative concept, music, directorial style, and Huston's pantomime,
made me laugh out loud. Bravo.
THE PHANTOM CHARIOT
(Victor Sjöström, 1921).
Adapted from a novel by Selma Lagerlöf (the first woman writer
to win the Nobel Prize). this is a Christian fable about a man (played
by Sjöström himself) who has rejected wife, family, and morality,
wasting his life in drinking and gambling, while maintaining a cynical
and selfish point of view. Drinking in a cemetery on New Year's Eve
with some cronies, he tells the story of an old friend who claimed that
whoever died at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve has to drive
the chariot of death for the ensuing year, picking up the souls of the
dead, but knowing no rest himself. As it happens, the narrator receives
a blow on the head at midnight, and the chariot comes for him.
The film's narrative structure, involving multiple flashbacks, was
innovative in its day. The content of the story - reminiscent of A
Christmas Carol, except much more somber - has not worn so well.
Without much insight into the main character's malignant attitude, the
picture takes a very conventional religious standpoint - he is a sinner,
for whose soul a saintly Salvation Army nurse prays on her deathbed,
which creates the oportunity for him to be shown the error of his ways
and repent; and so forth.
Within the limits of this material, Sjöström paces the story
well, and performs the central role with great vigor. He was also one
of the few film directors of the time who knew how to use stillness
to create emotion. But the main interest of the film lies in its use
of double-exposure photography. Cinematographer Julius Jaenzon, who
shot several films for Mauritz Stiller as well as for Sjöström,
achieved a more complicated effect than had ever been done before. The
superimposed phantom chariot seems to appear within the image rather
than on it - sometimes as many as four different images exposed in a
single frame - and this was all done in the camera, which took an incredible
amount of care and planning to achieve. The result is the supernatural
made tangible while retaining its eerie effect, and this is a major
reason why the film haunted the imaginations of viewers, and influenced
the later development of cinematic fantasy.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
(Robert Mulligan, 1962).
It's no secret that adapting a novel to film can be a perilous affair.
A movie, even when it's good, doesn't often convey the feeling of the
book it's based on. But in this case screenwriter Horton Foote treated
the Harper Lee novel - about a Depression-era Alabama lawyer and his
two children - with love and respect, and the director successfully
evoked the novel's sense of childhood mystery and tenderness.
The story takes the point of view of the children, who play and quarrel
and generally act like real kids. The young actors, Philip Alford and
Mary Badham, are marvelous, without any of the cutesy affectation that
ruins so many films about children. Elmer Bernstein's quietly melodic
score creates the mood of looking back on one's childhood and remembering
its sufferings and joys. At the center is the performance of Gregory
Peck as the father, Atticus Finch. Peck's reserved and dignified manner,
which in some of his vehicles has come off as mere stiffness, is here
perfectly matched to his character. Much of the film's emotional power
derives from the love of Atticus for his children, and the love or longing
that we, the audience, feel for our fathers, or for the ideal image
of a father. Atticus is indeed an ideal - patient, old-fashioned yet
tolerant, the embodiment of decency and understanding. That the story
is told through the eyes of his daughter makes the ideal seem not only
real but deeply moving.
The story has two major strands. The first concerns the children's
journey from childhood to young adulthood, with their evolving curiosity
about a mentally ill neighbor named Boo Radley as the main symbol. The
second strand is about a case that Atticus takes, defending a black
man (Brock Peters) on a charge of raping a white woman. The second strand
takes up the middle section of the film, with the first strand constituting
the frame, as it were.
This second theme, as topical and important as it was in 1962 - and
today as well, unfortunately - is not handled as successfully as the
sections of the film dealing with the children. The acting in the trial
scenes is sometimes overwrought. The film's liberal sensibility is simplistic
in that racism is seen as the vice of only an ignorant, lower-class
segment of the population (primarily the character of the supposed rape
victim's drunken father), but not of the majority of people such as
the judge and the sheriff. I suppose it's unrealistic to expect much
more from a film made during the height of the Civil Rights debate.
The obviousness of Mulligan's approach in these scenes doesn't detract
too much from the film's overall effectiveness. Peck does very well
in the final statement to the jury, and the picture's antiracist stance
is welcome at any time.
To Kill a Mockingbird is also remarkable in that it's not only
a good film about children, but a good, serious film for children. I
watched it several times on television as a child, and it affected me
profoundly, in a way that movies aimed at kids without taking their
thoughts and feelings seriously never did. I must admit this affects
my experience of the film today. I find myself crying at a moment's
notice, not only because of the beauty of the picture itself, but because
of the memories of personal feelings from my childhood that it summons.
In this case the critic is unable to achieve objectivity. Nor does he
care to.
RED HEADED WOMAN (Jack Conway, 1932).
Lillian Andrews (Jean Harlow), a scheming sexpot, seduces her married
boss (Chester Morris), causing divorce and general mayhem in the lives
of those around her.
If you wanted a classic example of how a Pre-Code Hollywood film differs
from a film made after the Code, you couldn't do much better than this.
It's not just the relative sexual frankness, or the depiction of extramarital
affairs as a regular aspect of life, although both are present in this
movie. Here the main character's behavior is not even mitigated by charm
or good intentions. Harlow plays a vulgar, manipulative climber who
will not hesitate to destroy a marriage or cheat on a lover if it will
advance her up the social ladder. The picture doesn't approve of her,
but it doesn't go out of its way to punish her either. It just allows
her free rein for her appetites, with results both dramatic and hilarious.
Jean Harlow's limited range tended to make her seem out of place in
more complicated roles. Here she's at her best, in a part that requires
her to be tough and crude, a relentless force of pure ego. In its own
way, this was just as much of an offense against propriety as Mae West's
serenely bawdy characters. Harlow was the incarnation of the working-class
woman with no use for the sort of feminine refinement that was expected
of good girls. This persona, with its undercurrent of female sexual
desire, had a lot to do, I think, with her popularity. In Red Headed
Woman one can't help but be a little repelled by her character even
as one laughs. And I believe this is just what the script, by the legendary
Anita Loos, intends us to feel.
Una Merkel, as Lil's best friend, offers wisecracking commentary from
the sidelines. Morris, the love interest, is a bit of a lump, but he
manages some shifty, amusing reactions with his eyes. Charles Boyer
shows up as an amorous chauffeur. The men in the film stumble about,
trying to deal with the force of nature that is Harlow, and the whole
thing is absorbing, convoluted, and funny in the peculiar way that only
movies from that brief era of the sound film managed to be - making
you laugh at your own capacity to be offended by people's marital and
sexual foibles.
The ending is to die for.
©2001 Chris Dashiell
CineScene
