My Man Godfrey (1936) ****

There are few films from the 1930s that I like better than My Man Godfrey (1936).  Screwball comedies are a particular favorite of mine, and this is one of the best ever made.  It is a film filled with memorable characters and lines.  In addition, it has a bit of a serious side, touching on the plight of the Forgotten Man during the Depression.  When you combine all of these ingredients you come up with a deliciously entertaining movie.

If you went to see this in 1936 you would have seen William Powell and Carole Lombard’s names on the marquee, but while both give fine performances, they are greatly aided by the stellar supporting performances of Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, and Mischa Auer.  It is the supporting characters that carry this film along its crazy path. 

Powell plays Godfrey Smith/Park, a privileged Bostonian who chucks it all after a woman does him wrong. He ends up living in New York City Dump 32 until Cornelia (Patrick) and Irene Bullock (Lombard) find him there while looking for a Forgotten Man as part of a scavenger hunt.  He soon ends up being their 5th Avenue butler.

Both sisters are spoiled and narcissistic, but they are different in that Cornelia has a malicious side and Irene is compassionate incarnate.  I suppose this is what makes Patrick’s character the more interesting of the two.  Cornelia is intelligent and jaded, while Irene is flighty and naïve. I often think director Gregory La Cava and screenwriters Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind used Cornelia as their focal point in developing their social satire.  Here is a woman who has everything: beauty, class, money, and intelligence. Yet, she seethes with resentment and discontent. A lot of people think Godfrey should have ended up with Cornelia in the end (the whole Taming of the Shrew thing), but what most people forget is Cornelia was the sort of woman Godfrey left back in Boston. For me, Patrick’s is the standout performance.

Eugene Pallette and Alice Brady also do memorable turns as Alexander and Angelica Bullock, the parents of Cornelia and Irene. Pallette, in particular, does a fine job of presenting his character’s astonishment at the complete insanity of his family.  Perhaps it’s his voice, but he conveys both irritation and apathy extremely well.  Brady’s pixie-seeing Angelica is the epitome of oblivious mothering.  Here is a woman who has a protégé (really her paramour, but the Hays Code was around) in would-be musician Carlo (Auer); drinks too much (hence the pixies); and, supports her daughters’ eccentric behavior.  She is no role model, but her daughters are a lot like her—especially Irene, who decides to make Godfrey her protégé. 

Now, I’m not saying that Powell and Lombard don’t give fine  performances, because both are very good.  Powell plays the calm caretaker of the insane asylum that the Bullocks call home well.  He is both bemused and detached in his role as Godfrey.  It is quite comical to watch him thwart off Irene’s advances--especially since Powell and Lombard had been previously married. It is said that she was too animated for him; plus, he was sixteen years older.  So, when Godfrey makes the comment in the film that Irene should find someone her own age and class it was a bit like art imitating life.  Lombard, for her part, plays Irene as a theatrical little girl who doesn’t know how to get what she wants without faux fainting or crying.  The “laugh” is what I find most hysterical about Irene.  Anytime she doesn’t understand what is happening, or when she is unsure of herself, she falls back on that childish laugh. 

Besides fine acting, the writing is superb.  The dialogue is rapid-fire and sharp as an axe.  Each character has their own memorable lines, but I’ve always thought that Angelica Bullock got the best ones—or maybe Alice Brady just delivered hers better than the rest.  My favorite exchange comes between Angelica and Godfrey:

Angelica: My ancestors came over on the boat. Oh, not the Mayflower, but the boat after that. What did your ancestors come over on, Godfrey?
Godfrey: As far as I know, they've always been here.
Angelica: They weren't Indians, I hope.
Godfrey: One can never be sure of one's ancestors.
Angelica: You know, you have rather high cheek bones.

 

And from that point on there is a running gag about Godfrey being of Indian descent.  Overall, it’s just a pleasure to listen to such clever dialogue (especially if you compare it to some of the dialogue in modern film).  Smart witticisms never age and that’s one of the reasons My Man Godfrey seems timeless.

Finally, what most people forget about My Man Godfrey is that it is a slight social commentary about the difference between the rich and poor during the Depression.  The Forgotten Man, men who served in WWI or lost everything in the Crash, found themselves unemployed and displaced living in places like City Dump 32, while the Bullocks lived the high life on 5th Avenue.  The only time the Bullocks of the world notice the Forgotten Man is when they need him to win a silly game for them.  At one point in the film Godfrey says: “The only difference between a derelict and a man is a job.” Of course, more could have been done with this theme.  If I have one complaint with the film it would be that Godfrey shouldn’t have been pretending to be down on his luck but actually have been down and out.  Still, it is a nice twist when you learn the reason he can handle the Bullocks so well is that he was once afflicted with their disease as well.

One interesting aside about My Man Godfrey is that it was the first film to receive nominations in all four acting categories: Best Actor (Powell), Best Actress (Lombard), Best Supporting Actor (Mischa Auer) and Best Supporting Actress (Alice Brady). While none of the actors won the coveted statue, they should have taken solace in the fact that La Cava was passed over as Best Director and Hatch and Ryskind didn’t win Best Screenplay either.  However, the strangest thing about the whole Oscar situation is this: My Man Godfrey wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. Somehow the math just doesn’t seem right there.  Oh, well…

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The Thin Man (1934) ****

Long before glamorous millionaires Jonathan, Jennifer, and Freeway Hart solved crimes for ABC on Tuesday nights, super-glamorous millionaires Nick, Nora, and Asta Charles were wittily revealing criminals for MGM on the silver screen. The Harts had five seasons to do their worst to the world of white-collar criminals, while the Charles had only 6 feature films. Plus, they looked a billion times better doing it—one crime they didn’t have to solve was the hair and wardrobe of the 1980s! 

Born out of the creative mind of one of the greatest authors of detective novels, Dashiell Hammett, Nick (William Holden) and Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) set the bar for all other would-be married sleuths. Sophisticated, witty, and glamorous, the couple could trade rapid-fire dialogue, nonchalantly down martinis and eat caviar, while cleverly solving whatever crime came their way. And, it all started with The Thin Man (1934)—a low-budget MGM film that went on to spawn one of the studio’s most profitable film series, as well as a long-running radio serial and a short-running TV series starring Peter Lawford. The film earned four Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Powell), Best Director (W.S. Van Dyke) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who coincidentally were married). Although it went home Oscar-less, The Thin Man did lose to a worthy adversary: It Happened One Night took home all four Oscars for which The Thin Man was nominated. I, personally, like The Thin Man more than It Happened One Night, but that’s another story for another day.

Powell and Loy made fourteen films together for a reason—they had oodles of chemistry. It started with Manhattan Melodrama in 1934(also directed by Van Dyke) and ended with The Senator Was Indiscreet in 1947. Yet, The Thin Man is their best film together (although I am also partial to The Great Ziegfeld…but why didn’t Billie Burke play herself?).

The film has way too many twists and turns to give a full synopsis. As such, I will give the abridged version. The Thin Man is inventor Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis)—a man who has been swindled out of $50,000 in government bonds by his two-timing mistress Julia (Natalie Moorhead).  When he goes missing his daughter Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) becomes worried and asks former detective Nick Charles to find him. Recently married and always inebriated, Nick and his wife Nora just want to drink, eat and be merry, but greedy rich people keep getting in their way—or dead mistresses (Julia) are discovered. Plus, Nora starts to think helping her husband solve a murder would be exciting, so she sets out to convince him to take the case.

I suppose it was pretty exciting when she opened the door to gun-wielding Joe Morelli (Edward S. Brophy)—Julia’s other lover. Or perhaps it was really exciting when Nick cold-cocked her to remove her from the line of fire? Having taken a flesh wound himself, Nick finds himself under suspicion when the police find a gun hidden in one of Nora’s drawers.  Classic line from Nora: "What's that man doing in my drawers?” And, so, after being harassed, shot, and insinuated into the case, Nick goes about finding the killer of not only Julia, but her scar-faced accomplice Nunheim (Harold Huber) and another person…but I can’t tell, or that would ruin the ending! Suffice to say, it is a delight to watch Nick put all the pieces together to solve the murders.

Besides the clever unraveling of the mystery, what makes this film such a blast is the witty dialogue. For example, when a reporter asks Nora if her husband is working on a case she responds: “A case of Scotch. Pitch in and help him.” Another example, and perhaps the best example of the repartee between husband and wife comes when Nora worries that she’s about to become a widow:

Nick: You wouldn’t be a widow for long.
Nora: You bet I wouldn’t.
Nick: Not with all your money.

The film is just too full of great lines to repeat them all, but trust me, there are many laugh-out-loud moments. 

While it’s not a hard-boiled detective story, it is a film that keeps you guessing to the very end.  I think I prefer my suspense mixed with sophisticated comedy—you get to laugh a lot while watching the mystery unfold.  Plus, beneath the mystery and hilarious barbs, the film is also about romance.  Without even really trying, it turns out to be a film that just about any viewer will enjoy.  Personally, is is one of my all-time favorite films. Plus, it has Asta!!!

 

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Gone with the Wind (1939) ****

Why, Ms. Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), I do declare that you are one of the greatest female characters, both in film and prose, in American history.  You might be calculating but oddly still stupid at times, but I still like you and your 18 inch waist (pre Bonnie, rest her dear soul). Perhaps I often found myself hoping that Ms. Melly (Olivia de Havilland) would slap you or that a Yankee soldier would defile you—both to teach you a lesson—but I still hoped beyond hope that you would triumph in the end.  Alas, your god and creator, Margaret Mitchell, got it right in the end—let the reader/viewer decide how  your tomorrow turned out.  Of course, had Mitchell known that her money-grubbing descendants would allow Alexandra Ripley to write a trashy sequel (I won’t name the title, but the title is the most creative thing about it…and that’s all you need to know, Ms. Scarlett), perhaps she would have relented about writing the end of your story.  So, what makes you and your film merit a four-star rating, Ms. Scarlett? 

Star one: your theme music.  Dramatic and memorable—just like you Ms. Scarlett. Whenever I hear it I immediately think of the lush green gardens of Tara (and the burning of Atlanta, too—damn those Yankess, Miss Scarlett, damn them!),  Ah, and just like you were robbed by those damn Yankees, composer Max Steiner was robbed by the Academy when he lost the Oscar to some silly guy named The Wizard of Oz—now you know that’s not a decent, Southern gentleman’s name, Ms. Scarlett. Of course, it only makes sense that you would have one of the most memorable film scores ever, Ms. Scarlett, as you are the most memorable female film character in history.  Every badass needs a badass theme song, Ms. Scarlett, and rest assured, when your overpriced barouche is cruising the streets of Charleston (or Savannah, Atlanta, etc.) people know what badass is coming. 

Star two: your clothes.  With a figure like yours, Ms. Scarlett, you would look good in anything.  While I don’t know how wise it is to wear a green and white dress to a BBQ, I still think you make it work—and that green ribbon that attaches your hat to the rest of you could be used as a napkin if need be. What I’m saying is, you know how to make any dress work.  Take for example the white ruffle dress—some people would look like a roll of toilet paper gone wrong, but somehow it looks flouncy on you.  Another example is the red garnet gown that you look ultra-fierce in.  Some people just couldn’t work those feathers and the gauze-veil thingy, but you rock it. And, who but you could make a dress out of green velvet drapes seem stylish (sort of)?  Granted, it was because of those damn Yankees that you had to rip those curtains down and wear the tassels as an accessory belt, but we can’t blame the dress for the circumstances into which it was born. 

Star three: your crew. Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) may have left you in the end, but while he was with you he was the man in charge.  Your scenes together alone could have burned down Atlanta—damn Yankees.  I have to admit, I just couldn’t understand why you were always after that loser Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) when you had a man like Rhett around. Was it that he rejected you, Ms. Scarlett?  You were just too much woman for that weak man!  He needed a calm woman like your cousin Ms. Melly, so he could continue the cycle of inbreeding. Melly, now there was a woman who knew how to endure, Ms. Scarlett.  Just think of all the insufferable things Aunt Pittypat (Laura Hope Crews) said over the years to that poor girl!  And you thought listening to Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) and Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) all the time was almost too much to bare.

Star four: your attitude.  There’s one thing that makes a person memorable, and that’s their attitude.  Sometimes things don’t go the way you want, but that doesn’t mean you give up. And, Lord knows, Ms. Scarlett you never give up.  Ashley married Melanie, so you married Charles (he was better looking anyway, plus he died and left you some worthless Confederate money—damn Yankees!). When you didn’t have the money to pay the taxes on Tara you and your drape dress found Frank Kennedy.  When the damn Yankees came calling you shot one dead. To me, this is a can-do attitude.  Plus, you always know you are the most interesting woman in the room.  Of course, you do have a a touch of willfullness and a rather nasty temper, but Irish blood runs hot!  Now, if I had to make one constructive suggestion to you it would be this: get over your procrastination issue. Tomorrow might be another day, but sometimes that day can turn out to be really crummy. Still, I like the can-do attitude about getting your man back. 

And, that, Ms. Scarlett is why you and your film are so memorable.

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All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) **1/2

Let’s hope all stays quiet on our western front in Afghanistan.

Closely based on former WWI German soldier Erich Remarque’s novel of the same name, this 1930 anti-war film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and also a Best Director Oscar for Lewis Milestone. The story examines the horrific and senselessness of a German soldier’s experience in the literal trenches of WWI.

The film opens by introducing viewers to the militaristic nature of Germany in 1914, with German soldiers marching to martial music and professors urging students to enlist for the glory of the fatherland. This is where we meet Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) and his friends Kropp, Leer, and Kemmerick. We watch as they enthusiastically arrive at boot camp only to see them soon broken down by a brutal commander. After finishing their training, the young soldiers are sent to a war-torn French town on the outskirts of the front. Here they meet cynical and grizzled front veterans, who enlighten them about the shortage of supplies, specifically food. Luckily they have the very industrious Kaczynski, who finds a pig and is willing to trade pork for other comforts, namely cigarettes and booze. Kaczynski serves as the voice of truth about what war entails and is about.

Soon the soldiers are sent to the front to string barbed wire and are introduced to shell fire. One of the boys is blinded by shell fire and then is killed as he runs toward enemy lines. From here we watch the soldiers hunker down in bunkers for endless days of exploding bombs and sporadic machinegun fire. We see soldiers have nervous breakdowns, deal with a rat invasion, and endure hunger and sleeplessness. Once the bombing dies down, the soldiers find themselves in a battle in no-man’s land. Using mobile crane shots, Milestone captures some of the most realistic battle scenes in film history. Intercutting charging soldiers with machinegun fire, Milestone creates images that stress the chaotic and dizzying nature of warfare. One scene shows a French soldier completely obliterated by a grenade—only his hands are left, which we see gripping barbed wire. Another scene shows rows of soldiers fall down like dominoes against machinegun fire. At the end of this battle, the French reach the German trench and force the Germans to retreat to a further back trench. The camera then scans the battlefield to show thousands of bodies. Then, in an excellent indictment on the futility of war, the film looks as though it was being run in reverse, as the Germans mount a counter-attack and push the French back to their former position. This was not a sanitized war film.

When they return from the trench the soldiers are fed and told they will return to the trenches the next day. This launches the German soldiers to philosophize about why war is conducted: to give generals something to do and to make manufacturers rich. While in town, Paul and other soldiers visit a dying Kemmerick in a makeshift hospital. Amplifying the horrors of war, we watch as Kemmerick realizes his leg has been amputated. One soldier callously asks Kemmerick for his boots since he obviously no longer needs them. After watching Kemmerick die, Paul takes the boots back to camp. These were evidently bad luck boots, because what follows is a montage scene of the boots being passed to a new owner every time the former owner dies.

Later in the film, Paul finds himself in battle in a graveyard where he is struck in the head. As he takes cover, a shell explodes and Paul has a decimated coffin land on him—a foreshadowing of things to come. While hiding in a shell hole Paul find himself face-to-face with a French soldier, who he stabs in the throat with his bayonet. Unfortunately the French soldier doesn’t die easily, and Paul has to listen as the Frenchmen groans in agony. We watch as Paul waffles back and forth, praying for the soldier to die and then later hoping for his survival. When the soldier dies, Paul has a desperate conversation with the dead man for forgiveness. Soon after escaping the shell hole, Paul is severally wounded and take to the hospital where he watches yet another one of his friends scream in agony about having his leg cut off.

When he recovers from his injury Paul is given leave and he returns home, where he finds himself unable to deal with peace and quiet. He visits his sick mother and lies about how the war really is. He then finds his father and his friends out of touch with the realities of war, who tells him that he must risk his life for the honor of Germany. After leaving this group he is accosted by a former professor to address his students of the honor of being a German soldier. Shocking his professor, Paul gives a pacifistic speech about the truth of war. In a sadly ironic turn, the class boos Paul and calls him a coward. Because of this incident Paul decides he can’t take the unrealistic world away from the front and decides to return four days early.

When he returns to the front he finds most of his company dead. In a bitterly tragic scene, an aerial bomb wounds Kaczynski. Paul good-naturedly tells him the war is over for him and begins to carry him on his shoulder to a medic. Just then another aerial bomb explodes behind them and a bomb splinter kills Kaczynski, unbeknownst to Paul who continues talking to him. When he tries to give water to his friend he is shocked and dazed to find him dead. If this scene wasn’t heartbreaking enough, the closing scene is haunting. On the eve of the armistice, Paul is daydreaming in a trench about the coming peace when he sees a butterfly (he collected them before the war) through his gun-hole land just outside the trench. We watch as he starts to reach outside the trench and at the same time a sniper takes aim through a rifle scope. The next thing we hear is the shot that sends Paul to his death. The film closes with the image of countless white crosses and the ghosts of Paul and his friends marching into a void, who look accusingly back into the camera.

This is one of the greatest war films ever made. When you watch it today it does not seem dated at all. The grim images captured are mesmerizing and realistic. The message of the complete uselessness of war is not heavy-handed here. Instead, the true reality of what war looks like is bitterly emphasized. The overall performance of Lew Ayers is exceptional. He goes from enthusiastic recruit to grizzled, disillusioned veteran seamlessly.

If you are a WWI history buff or you enjoy truly great war films, you must see this film.

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The Big Parade (1925) **

Why is this 1925 King Vidor classic the top-grossing (worldwide) silent film of all time? I suppose people were willing to pay the price of admission to see one of the most realistic war films of the silent era.

Released just eight years after the end of the Great War, this film follows the story of Jim Apperson (played by John Gilbert) from reluctant volunteer to disabled war hero. Jim is a bored, rich young man who allows his naive fiancée to convince him to enlist. Off to war and quartered in France, Jim befriends Slim Jensen and Bull O’Hara (no relation to Scarlet) and falls for French shop girl Melisande. She’s easy on the eyes, but what makes her really attractive to Jim is that he can’t understand a word she’s saying. Any man’s dream…

Later on his unit is ordered to the front at Belleau Wood. The battle scenes are elaborately designed and heart-wrenching to watch. When they get bogged down in No Man’s Land, surrounded by snipers and a machinegun nest, the commander orders Jim, Bull, and Slim to take out the nest. Slim goes first and takes out the nest, but on his way back he’s injured and lies in the battlefield moaning in agony. This is too much for Jim and Bull and they try to rescue him, but Bull is killed and Jim is shot in the leg. Jim becomes enraged—comparable only to the rage of a man who has been stood up at the altar by a Swedish beauty. Anyway, this is where one of the more memorable scenes takes place. Jim stalks a German sniper into a trench and is about to slit his throat when the German motions for a cigarette. Compassionately, Jim gives him one and soon the soldier dies right next to him.

Later Jim is rescued by a Red Cross truck and while recuperating in the hospital he learns that Melisande’s village has been bombed. He grabs a crutch and hitches a ride on a truck. He finds Melisande’s village leveled and as he’s calling out for his love the town is shelled again. Jim is injured again in the leg, so much so that it is amputated. Returning home crippled he finds his finance in love with his brother and he returns to France and is reunited with Melisande.

The battle scenes in this film are great. This is not a sanitized view of war. The drudgery, cruelty, and mind-blowing death and destruction that encompass war are realistically depicted. John Arnold’s photography is superb.

This film literally reinvigorated the public’s interest in war films. If you are a fan of such films as Saving Private Ryan or Paths of Glory you must watch this film. A true cinematic gem from the silent era.

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Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1923) **1/2

A cult movie in more ways than one.

Shown as a Witching Hour film since the 1960s, this 1923 Ben Christensen silent docuhorror (I think I just made this genre up) is a study of witchcraft through the ages. It's supposed to be a "documentary", but I don't know how realistic one can truly be when it comes to filming reenactments of the Devil & Co. I can just imagine the outrage the release of this film caused in strict-Lutheran Sweden and Denmark! In America, a Variety reviewer said this about the film: "Wonderful though this picture is, it is absolutely unfit for public exhibition." Satanism, overt sensualism, and a bit of nudity were just too darn much for 1923!

While the story is not bowl-you-over compelling (though it is both spooky and comical at the same time), the set design, makeup, costumes, and lighting are imaginative. And who doesn't love a story with the devil, horns and all, seducing young women? An interesting film to watch, sober or otherwise.

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Nosferatu ( Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens)1922 **

Suave, sophisticated, and outright sexy is what you think of Max Schreck's Nosferatu, right? Don't be ashamed to admit it... What? You don't like pasty skin, pointed ears, sickening-long and pointed nails, and the gait of a floating corpse? Aren't you a fan of German Expressionism?

This 1922 silent by F.W. Murnau is a classic retelling of the Dracula myth that has often been imitated, but never surpassed. For those not in the know, Murnau had some problems with Bram Stoker's people, so he changed the setting and the names of the characters from the original novel. Instead of Count Dracula wreaking havoc in London we have Count Orlock, played by Shreck, decimating Bremen, Germany. However, the core plot is the same as the book. I'm sure you know the crux of the story, so I'll move on to what is great about this picture.


The interplay between shadow and light in some scenes is just fantastic. Photographers Gunther Krampf and Fritz Wagner do an amazing job of capturing just the right amount of light to capture the creepiness that is Orlock's shadow.

Max Schreck is unforgettable as Count Orlock. To allow yourself to become so embedded in the skin of your character takes talent. Hand movements, facial expressions, the tautness of his frame--all of these were perfectly orchestrated in such a way as to make Count Orlock a timeless movie monster. Those of you who have seen Willem Dafoe's portrayal of Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire might have a deeper appreciation of Schreck's work.

My favorite scene is when Count Orlock arrives by boat in Bremen and eerily glides off the boat and through the darkened and deserted streets. This scene gave me nightmares when I first saw it as a child. Do you have a favorite scene?

This film is a classic and should be watched--even if you don't think Max Schreck is the Sexiest Man Alive

 

 

 

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