TRAFFIC IN SOULS
(George Loane Tucker, 1913).
A criminal organization abducts poor and immigrant women, forcing them
into prostitution. The chief crook is a seemingly respectable businessman
(William Welsh) who handles the money while his underlings do the dirty
work. When a young woman (Ethel Grandin) is drugged and kidnapped, her
sister (Jane Gail) teams up with her policeman boyfriend (Matt Moore)
to rescue her.
The subject of "white slavery" (as it was called) was a sensational
one for its time -- such things just weren't talked about, much less
depicted -- and Tucker actually shot the film in secret, with private
financing, and without even the knowledge of Universal's head office,
or its chief, Carl Laemmle. If the picture had bombed, it might have
ruined his career, but of course it was a huge hit, making over a half
million dollars, which was a lot of money in those days (especially
since the movie only cost $7500 to make).
The titillating subject brought the crowds in, no doubt, but the film
is not really salacious. Things are hinted at without being shown. The
air of threatened womanly virtue may seem quaint today, yet on its own
terms this is a rather well-done crime picture, with good suspense and
a bang-up action sequence at the end. In a period when most films were
still overly theatrical, Tucker displays a relatively naturalistic,
low-key style. For the most part, the actors behave like real people
instead of mugging for the camera, and the expert cross-cutting shows
that D.W. Griffith wasn't the only director in Hollywood who could edit
with vigor. It's also interesting that the chief criminal is a complacent
family man and philanthropist, campaigning publicly against vice (moral
values, anyone?). This ironic note would rarely be sounded in film after
the Hays Code decreed that everything bourgeois must be virtuous.
There's a musty air that clings to almost every dramatic film made
prior to the flowering of technique that occurred in the 1920s, and
Traffic in Souls is no exception. For one thing, the plot mechanics
sometimes creak badly (the father of the two sisters just happens to
be an inventor, and one of his inventions comes in handy later, don't
you know). Nevertheless, the film represents something of a milestone
-- many of the elements of all the crime, action, and exploitation films
of the future are here already, in germinal form.
BRUTE FORCE (Jules Dassin, 1947).
A tough convict (Burt Lancaster) clashes with the prison's chief guard
(Hume Cronyn), while plotting a daring escape with his cellmates.
Dassin and screenwriter Richard Brooks cleverly seasoned an exciting
prison-break picture with elements of social commentary. Cronyn's character
rules through fear, hatred, and humiliation. The prisoners are constantly
dehumanized by this system based on force (thus the title), so we sympathize
with their desire to escape. The angry, rebellious impulses that express
themselves in the story lend the film a great deal of emotional power.
The theme is pertinent not only to prisons and the treatment of convicts,
but to the whole atmosphere in society right after the war, at the dawning
of the McCarthy era. Only in the character of an alcoholic prison doctor
(Art Smith), making speeches against arbitrary power and brutality (in
case you didn't get the point), does the movie overplay its hand. Telling
is never as good as simply showing.
Lancaster, in only his second film role, is a dominating presence --
with very few words, he establishes his character as intensely single-minded
and dangerous. Cronyn seems cast against type -- a little tin horn dictator,
to be sure, but a bit too refined for the role, I think. Still, he does
a good job, going nicely over the top in a scene where he beats a prisoner
while blasting Wagner on his record player (a veiled reference to fascism,
I suppose).
To provide background on the characters, and perhaps because the filmmakers
thought they needed to somehow get some females in the picture, there
are periodic flashbacks occasioned by a woman's face on a calendar in
the cell, in which we meet the women in the lives of the different cellmates
-- played by Ann Blyth and Yvonne De Carlo, among others. It's an interesting
idea, but somewhat awkward -- it doesn't quite come off as integral
to the picture.
Everything comes to a head in an exciting, bloody climax that was considered
very violent in its day. Brute Force is not always plausible,
but most of the time it's a gripping, emotionally compelling experience,
and it's never dull. It's a good example of how the "noir" style could
succeed in other settings besides the detective or gangster film, and
Dassin would go on to become one of the most impressive film noir directors.
I MARRIED A DEAD MAN
(Robin Davis, 1983).
The dumb title is from the original Cornel Woolrich novel, previously
made in 1949 by Mitchell Leisen as No
Man Of Her Own, with Barbara Stanwyck, and remade a few
times since. The tale concerns a young woman (Nathalie Baye), unmarried
and pregnant, who boards a train on a whim after being abandoned by
her abusive boyfriend (Richard Bohringer). On board, she meets a young
married couple and is befriended by the wife, who is also nine months
pregnant. The train crashes, and through an elaborately (and implausibly)
contrived set of circumstances, her identity is confused with that of
the other woman, who dies in the crash along with her husband. The husband's
family, who has of course never met their future daughter- in-law, take
the girl in, while she decides (after initial resistance) to pretend
to be the woman they want her to be, for the sake of the child, who
was born shortly after the crash.
This complex set-up has one purpose only: to create a situation where
the main character gets thrust into a family in which she is loved and
cared for (and learns to love and care in return) while pretending to
be someone whom she's not. The ailing, imperious mother (Madeleine Robinson)
becomes attached to her; the dead son's younger brother (Francis Huster)
falls in love with her, and so on. Then the bad boyfriend figures out
what's happened and shows up with blackmail on his mind.
Baye, one of the most appealing French actresses, is good at playing
the shy, vulnerable main character. But the film seems a bit thin. The
director needed to spend more time establishing the relationships between
the young woman and her adoptive family, rather than on the mystery-thriller
elements, which are negligible anyway. Although the tale resolves itself
in a satisfying way, we don't really know any of the characters well
enough to feel strongly about their predicament. It's not a good sign
that Bohringer's villain turns in the most compelling performance. We
also get Victoria Abril in an unnecessary part as a fiery peasant girl
and rival for the leading man's attention.
Actually, this is not a bad movie at all. In its more understated moments,
it is an absorbing one. It's just not a particularly memorable work:
in the end, a mildly entertaining chamber piece -- no more, no less.
FIRES ON THE PLAIN (Kon Ichikawa, 1959).
In the Philippines in 1945, a Japanese private (Eiji Funakoshi) is
ejected both by his unit, because he's not well enough to keep up, and
by the hospital, because he's not sick enough to merit eating from their
limited food supply. So he wanders through the jungle, encountering
various members of the defeated Imperial Army, starving and desperate,
as they seek to evade capture by the Americans, and eventually turn
against one another in the brutal struggle to survive.
By focusing on the reduction of men to a condition of barbarism, beyond
the context of war's political causes or even of combat, Ichikawa created
one of cinema's most daring and uncompromising antiwar statements. Through
the examples of the various characters' responses to radical hardship
and extremity in the wake of the war's carnage, the film presents the
act of killing as the basis of human degradation and loss of self. Some
soldiers take on the role of the powerful oppressor -- using fear to
gain advantages over others. Others resort to exploitation, as in the
case of an injured officer who, with the help of a resentful assistant,
attempts to trade tobacco leaves with the retreating soldiers in exchange
for food and other necessaries. The final horrifying stage -- the end
result, we may infer, of the honor and glory of killing for your country
-- is cannibalism. This element has made the film notorious, but it's
not there for shock value -- it only registers as an expression of the
film's unflinching dedication to truth.
Funakoshi projects a strangely beatific presence in the central role
of the tubercular soldier. Although he strives to retain some kind of
integrity in the midst of madness, he does not escape the taint of violent
injustice in the pursuit of survival. An actor with the American-sounding
name of Mickey Curtis is chillingly effective as the sinister aide to
the lame tobacco peddling officer. In fact, all the acting is superb,
and Ichikawa has somehow managed to make everyone look so hungry and
demoralized that you can scarcely believe it's only a movie. The black-and-white
photography and widescreen composition is stunning -- rarely has hell
been depicted with such vividness and clarity. Fires On the Plain
is one for the ages -- an antiwar film that transcends time, place,
and platitudes to make an indelible impression on your memory and conscience.
THE GUNFIGHTER (Henry King, 1950).
Gregory Peck plays Jimmy Ringo, the fastest gun in the West, whose
fame has become a curse, causing him to be the target of every young
upstart with a gun, no matter where he tries to go. In the film's first
scene he is minding his own business at a saloon, only to be goaded
into gunning down an insolent youth with a trigger finger. The boy's
three older brothers go after Ringo, who flees to the town of Cayenne,
where he hopes to see his wife (Helen Westcott), now a schoolteacher,
and their son. The town marshal (excellently played by Millard Mitchell),
a reformed outlaw and an old friend, tries to get Ringo to leave, while
news of the gunfighter's appearance causes crowds of curious onlookers
to gather around the local saloon where he's holed up.
This is a western that succeeds through the virtue of simplicity --
most of the action takes place indoors, with Peck facing off against
everybody in the Cayenne Saloon. The sets, costumes, and language are
all very plain and matter-of-fact, striving for (and mostly succeeding
at) a kind of historical realism. Although it seems like a small film,
there's a lot of big talent at work -- along with the direction by the
veteran King, the film boasts excellent photography by the great Arthur
Miller, an Alfred Newman score, and an intelligent story by William
Bowers and Andre De Toth. With extensive use of deep focus, the picture,
for all its rough-hewn quality, attains a kind of harsh beauty.
Gregory Peck's talents were best employed in parts of a certain understated
range. Here he plays a man who has awakened to the fact that his life
has been a waste, and must somehow find a way out. He does a great job,
staying within himself and projecting the right mix of sullen menace
with a desire for a better way of life. The Gunfighter takes
the myth of the Western outlaw and finds a new wrinkle, and in so doing
explores some interesting psychological territory. Although the familiarity
of many of the genre elements -- the heart-of- gold dancehall girl (Jean
Parker), the worshipful son, etc. -- prevent the picture from scaling
any heights, this is thoroughly professional work -- entertaining from
beginning to end, and sometimes even stirring.
©2004 Chris Dashiell
CineScene
