The Lady Vanishes (1938) **1/2

(There may be spoilers in this post.)

I’m not certain what most people see when they watch director Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Lady Vanishes (1938).  To many, it is the most suspenseful and wittiest of his British films.  Perhaps it is the wittiest, but I would dare say that The 39 Steps (1935) is far more suspenseful.  Still, those points aren’t really  what I contemplate when I watch this movie.  What I think about is how politically symbolic it is—perhaps without even trying.

While The Lady Vanishes premiered in London on October 7, 1938, and, thus, could not have been affected by Neville Chamberlain’s idiotic “Peace for Our Time” speech on September 30, 1938, regarding the Munich Agreement, the movie is a reflection of its time.  First, the film begins in the small, fictitious European country of Bandrika, which has just suffered an avalanche that has blocked the railway.  To me, the avalanche is Nazi Germany—which would scoop up the Sudetenland after Chamberlain’s act of appeasement.  As a result of the avalanche, a small group of British citizens find their trip back home delayed and they must lodge overnight in a crowded hotel infested with all sorts of Continentals who don’t speak English and seem unfamiliar with common  British manners. In an uncivilized world (any European country east of France in this case), the British, of course, are overly civilized—which, by the way, was causing them all sorts of trouble with dealing with Hitler.

Then there are the principal leads: Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.  Iris Henderson (Lockwood) is an heiress returning to England to marry a man she obviously doesn’t love because it is time for her to settle down.  Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) is a whimsical musicologist who is researching regional folk music and customs. Together, they are the British Empire: practical observers of the European conundrum—the Nazis. When Iris’ takes a flower pot to the skull, which leads her to blackout on the train, her worldview becomes a bit off-kilter—as had the British mindset during Hitler’s Anschluss of Austria.

When Iris awakes, she is tended to by the kindly Ms. Froy (Dame May Whitty), who unfortunately vanishes (hence the title) soon thereafter.  When Iris attempts to find Ms. Froy she finds herself fighting against two groups of people: the conspirers and the do-nothings.  The conspirers are a mix of Europeans (who seem to speak Italian and German) who work together to trick Iris into believing that her bump on the head is causing her to mistrust them, and that Ms. Froy is not missing.  And, then there are the do-nothings, who all happen to be British.  There are the adulterers (Cecil Parker and Linden Travers), who don’t want to become involved in case of scandal, and then there are Caldicott (Naunton Wayne) and Charters (Basil Radford), two British cricket enthusiasts who would rather stay mum about having seen Ms. Froy than miss an all-important cricket match.  I view this as a statement that scandal leads to confrontation and that it is better to preoccupy oneself with unimportant distractions than seeing what is truly happening around oneself. 

And, then there is the stranded train scene.  By this time, with no help from their fellow British passengers, Iris and Gilbert have recovered Ms. Froy and are trying to convince their fellow travelers that something is amiss in whatever Godforsaken European nation they are stranded in.  It takes a bullet to the hand for Charters to believe that they are in grave danger and Cecil Parker’s character, a pacifist, gets shot down while waving a white handkerchief in the air.  It is not until the British citizens band together against their enemy that they can escape danger.

Oh, and Ms. Froy—why was she “vanished” by the Europeans in the first place?  She was a British spy on her way back to report that two European nations had made a secret pact with one another.  Please pick one: the Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviets and Germany or the Pact of Steel between Italy and Germany, both of which were signed in 1939. 

I expect mine is an unusual viewpoint of The Lady Vanishes.  Perhaps you would rather I discuss how the serenader is killed by an unknown person via shadow or that Hitchcock employs birds and a magician’s disappearing woman cabinet to make a statement?  Or what about the fact that one of the conspirators (Paul Lukas) is a likable villain or that the heroine finds herself in world where reality is pitted against illusion?  All of those common Hitchcockian themes do appear in the movie and work quite well, but as a historian I see an accidentally  politically prophetic film. 

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Peter Ibbetson (1935) **

As a fan of Gary Cooper, I must say that I was sorely disappointed by director Henry Hathaway’s, Peter Ibbetson (1935).  When I think of Cooper I don’t envision a pencil mustache, an five-second British accent, and surrealism.  This is not to say that this is a bad film—it’s just unbelievably weird. 

I’ve never read George du Maurier’s novel, Peter Ibbetson, so I viewed the screen adaptation with fresh eyes.  At first, when two young children (Dickie Moore and Virginia Weidler) are torn apart by fate, I anticipated that they would reunite as adults and live happily ever after once they overcame some Hollywood obstacle.  My goodness, I did not envision a murder conviction, a broken back, and, wait for it, a nighttime dream world where the separated lovers meet each night to skip through fields and dodge falling rocks.  Granted, it wasn’t your usual Hollywood story, so for that it gets originality points, but, oh my, when I try to wrap my mind around dream synchronization it just makes me giggle.

The acting was passable, but nothing to rave about either.  Cooper, who plays Peter Ibbetson, seems a bit uncomfortable in the role—or perhaps I am projecting my unhappiness with his pencil mustache with how I viewed his performance.  Still, he seemed stifled in this and his easy-going naturalistic acting style seemed to be missing.  Ann Harding, who plays Peter’s dream partner Mary, is much better in the first half of the film than in the second—so I guess that means she gave an uneven turn here.  I much preferred her when she played the spunky Duchess of Towers than when she morphed into the Dream Weaver. Again, my dislike of this plot device may have hampered my viewpoint of her second-half performance.  And, then we have a very young Ida Lupino speaking with a sort of Cockney accent as a girl Peter escorts around the French countryside. It was refreshing to hear Lupino use her British accent—as she was English—but I expect she did not speak with a Cockney accent at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, either. 

The most impressive thing about Peter Ibbetson is Charles Lang’s cinematography.  He and director Hathaway obviously wanted to depict two different worlds—reality and dreamland (for lack of a better term, but I suppose you could say fantasy, too).  No surprise here, but Lang’s surreal world is full of silhouettes and expressionistic photography.  I expect the translucent shots of people walking through prison bars was a highlight for many viewers (even if it was 1935 and film had made great strides since Victor Sjostrom’s The Phantom Carriage in 1921).  Even I have to admit that Peter’s dream tower was pretty impressive (kudos to art directors Hans Dreier and Robert Usher)—and fitting, as his lover was the Duchess of Towers.  However, I was not amused with it exploding and raining rocks/debris down on two people who were dreaming. 

Overall, I found Peter Ibbetson to be a unique film (especially for the 1930s), but I wasn’t overly impressed with the overall product. The film is uneven and I just couldn’t allow myself to take the plot seriously.  This may sound strange coming from someone who adores The Wizard of Oz (1939), but there’s a big difference between the two films—Dorothy was the only one dreaming! 

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Limite (1931) :(((

If all you can think about is how much you wish you had a handful of Dramamine and speed while watching a film then you are not having an enjoyable viewing experience.

Director Mario Peixoto’s Limite (1931) is not the worst “art” film I’ve ever seen, but it surely wasn’t good, either.  In general, I don’t like experimental film. This admission capped with the fact that this was also a silent experimental film only seemed to heighten my abhorrence.  And, unlike other avant garde films that I disliked (see L'age d'or and Un Chien Andalou), Limite also had the indecency to be exceedingly long—114 minutes of pain.

In a rowboat to nowhere three nameless people—two women (Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey) and one man (Brutus Pedreira) indefinitely and aimlessly drift at sea.  Some semblance of what led them to this sea of abyss is told via flashbacks—but even those don’t really explain how the hell these people ended up floating in a boat together.  As such, the “story” made absolutely no sense and drug on forever—hence my need for a handful of speed.

And what of my desire for Dramamine?  Spinning, swerving, spiraling, and twirling cameras, surprisingly, capture those types of images. I suppose this is where the experimental comes into play and why this is viewed as a “cult” film, but it just gave me a migraine. 

Overall, I hated it.  The best part of the film was when they showed a clip of an old Little Tramp film.  For one blissful minute in Limite I didn’t want to scream, “Is it over YET?”

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Skyfall (2012) **

Daniel Craig is certainly the best Bond since Sean Connery, and he is most assuredly the best looking Bond ever.  Yet, once I pushed all of that aside and actually watched director Sam Mendes’ Skyfall (2012) I wasn’t all that amused.  Action sequences galore—guns, explosions, runaway trains, speeding cars and motorcycles—and a crazy baddie (played by Javier Bardem) ripe for a visit with Freud just isn’t enough for me.  Of course, I’m not a 007 enthusiast and so the film that celebrates Bond’s 50th Anniversary wasn’t as special for me as it may have been for others.

Skyfall is about resurrection—and I expect continuation of the franchise.  A wild chase through the streets of Istanbul (and the aisles of the Grand Bazaar) finds Bond atop a speeding train trying to recapture a stolen hard drive that contains the names of MI6 agents.  When M (Judi Dench) orders Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to take out the man with the hard drive (Ola Rapace), she accidentally shoots Bond and he is presumed dead.  When MI6 headquarters are blown up, Bond comes out of hiding. Hooked on booze and pills and out of shape, Bond is asked to hunt down the man behind the assault on the beacon of British intelligence.  He finds a psychopath named Raoul Silva (Bardem), who has it in for M because she once traded him for other agents and cyanide destroyed his teeth. The remainder of the film revolves around some Freudian feud between Silva, M, and Bond, and only the death of one or two of them can bring it to an end.

Like all Bond films, the production was well traveled—Istanbul, Shanghai, Macau, London, and the moors of Scotland all make an appearance.  Roger Deakins’ cinematography is spot on as usual (see Barton Fink, No Country for Old Men, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, among many others) and he does a great job with all of the exterior shots. The shots of the Underground and the underground labyrinth that MI6 relocates to are tightly constructed and do a nice job of showcasing the Old Vic tunnels.  If I had to pick one scene that really stood out, it would be Bond’s waterway entrance into Macau—a dark night and sea illuminated by water lanterns always makes for a dramatic entrance.

And, just as every Bond film must have a crazy villain, Skyfall has Javier Bardem as Silva. Obviously Bardem knows how to play a psychopath (see, again, No Country for Old Men), but this particular psycho was a bit over the top—of course, Bond usually requires an over the top nutter. The biggest irritant was that Bardem was a blonde with orange eyebrows, but his obsession with M was also troubling.  Referring to her as “Mother” and blowing up buildings, the Tube, and a nice Scottish manor house only to ask her to blow out both their brains just seemed counterproductive.

The objectification of women is a Bond staple, but somehow, over the years this has been toned down a tad. Besides having  sex with an unnamed woman whilst on sabbatical and engaging in flirtatious talk with Ms. Moneypenny, there was only Berenice Marlohe to have sex with in a shower before her untimely death.  Of course, with M playing such a pivotal role in Skyfall, I can see why the old female objectification theme had to be somewhat diminished.  We will no doubt see Ms. Moneypenny in the next Bond film and with Ralph Fiennes taking over as M, perhaps we should wait until Bond No. 24 to see if this continues.  Still, it was nice seeing more of Craig’s shapely physique than any would-be Bond Girl.

Overall, Skyfall was your usual action film.  Boom, bang, and pow happened.  Things exploded, people got shot and stabbed, and the good guy won.  I was not compelled by the story or bowled over by anyone’s performance.  There were pretty places and people to look at and a lot of ado about nothing happened.  Quite simple, it was a Bond movie.

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962 ) ***

Director David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is an epic, three and half hour-plus film about how T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) unwittingly won Saudi Arabia for the British military during World War I.  On the one hand you could say the production was grand and the cast renowned, but on the other hand you could say the film was too long and comprised solely of men—there are only brief sightings of women.  As such, the film often drags and has a primarily testosterone infused plot—even if there are some homoerotic themes to be found.

The film was nominated for a whopping 10 Academy Awards and won seven: Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Original Score, and Best Director.  While it garnered two acting nominations, I must say that I was not overly impressed by anyone in this dream cast other than Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif. For me, O’Toole gets a bit hammy in this and Anthony Quinn’s performance is just the epitome of overacting.  Perhaps Sharif had an advantage on most of the cast, as he was actually from the Middle East (Egypt), but his performance as Sherif Ali is engaging and believable, and he deserved his Best Supporting Actor nomination. While Guinness may not have been from the Middle East, he is particularly memorable as King Faisal. I expect he took great pride in doing so well in a role that was originally supposed to be played by Laurence Olivier.

Whenever I think about Lawrence of Arabia I remember an endless desert, camels, and trains being blown up.  The sheer size of the production is mind-boggling, which is one of the reasons I think it is still so highly regarded by film critics.  Filming with a cast of thousands, comprised of both people and animals, in the desert was a monumental task for Lean.  Of course, Lean was no stranger to large productions (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Oliver Twist), so he knew quite well how to be the ringmaster of such a massive circus.  He benefitted greatly from having one of the greatest British cinematographers, F.A. Young, doing the heavy lifting.  Really, it’s not the story that makes Lawrence of Arabia such a memorable movie—it’s all about the images captured by Young. And, these striking images paired with Maurice Jones’ unforgettable score make the perfect pairing. 

In a post-colonial world, Lawrence of Arabia can be a troubling film.  It was actually banned in many Middle Eastern countries (sans Egypt) because of the way it depicted Arabs. The whole idea that Lawrence was some sort of messianic figure to the Arabs somehow infantilizes them.  Also, the depiction of Arabs as gullible savages did not play well in newly emancipated Arab nations.  While no one should ever condone terrorism, there is a reason many in the Middle East don’t like Westerners—you ask them to help you free themselves from the yolks of the Ottoman Empire with the promise of self-rule and then take them over yourselves to plunder their resources (mainly petroleum and gemstones) and there is bound to be some animosity. 

Overall, Lawrence of Arabia is a masterful work of brilliant cinematography.  The story is somewhat interesting, but if you are a student of history the blatant inaccuracies in the movie can be unpleasant to endure. Fine performances from Sharif and Guinness, at least, temper this unpleasantness. 

 

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Amour (2012) ***

So, so depressing—that is the best way I can describe director Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012).

For close to two hours I sat in abject misery watching Emmanuelle Riva’s character slowly descend into physical and mental incapacitation after suffering a series of strokes, while her husband (Jean-Louis Trintignant) helplessly watches.  I’m not actually sure what age group this film appeals to—most under-thirties probably would be bored, while everyone else probably endured the film with a complete sense of dread and depression. 

Without a doubt, the story is poignant and the performances are powerful, but I’ve come to a point in my life where watching emotionally draining films with no life-affirming moment or resolution just rub me the wrong way.  Facing immortality—yours or a loved one’s—is difficult enough in the realm of reality, why must it be faced so brutally in the fictional world as well.  Yes, art imitates life, and the best art touches on our humanity, but when there is no glimmer of hope at the end of anything, in this case a film, what really is the use?  It’s like reading Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche at the same time while swigging a bottle of gin and swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. 

All of that said, the mere fact that Amour elicited such a strong emotional response from me tells me that Haneke and his cast did a spectacular job in telling one of the most emotionally raw stories about death that I have ever seen.  While I did not enjoy watching the film, I was mesmerized by it—yes, this IS possible.  I didn’t check several times to see how much longer I would have to endure the agony because the movie was asinine—I did it because I wanted to know when I would finally be able to stop watching such heart-wrenching filmmaking. 

This in itself is surprising, as most of Haneke’s work (Cache {2005}, Funny Games {1997}, The Piano Teacher {2001}, and The White Ribbon {2010}), at least for me, is anger-inducing.  All of his films, this one included, are uncomfortable to watch.  His films are usually filled with mentally unstable people who do extremely irrational things in very calm manners.  As such, he presents cinema that is jarring and exhausting to watch. Yet, Haneke’s Amour has something new in it—heart.  While he would never allow sentimentality to creep into one of his movies, Haneke does permit the viewer to feel some empathy for his characters this time. Still, there is some Haneke callousness in the presentation of the couple’s daughter, Eva (Isabelle Huppert), and a nurse who is fired for abuse, although we don’t see it. 

Overall, Amour is a gripping story that I hope I never watch again. 

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It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) ***

It is a myth that the suicide rate increases between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  However, the “most wonderful time of the year” is not always so wonderful for everyone.  Christmas cards, crowded stores, wrapping presents, and mounting debt can weigh heavily on the psyche. And, then there are those who have lost loved ones or feel as though they haven’t any loved ones at all.  For these people, the holiday season is a torturous time, full of regrets and sorrows.  What-ifs, should-haves, and if-onlys play cruel tricks on those who carry around ghosts and faded dreams in their troubled minds.  I suspect this is the reason that It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) has endured as a Christmas tradition for more than fifty years. Everyone—yes, everyone—has a little of George Bailey running around in their subconscious.  As a wise person once told me, circumstance touches everyone—no one is immune.

I enjoy watching It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas season because I can relate to George Bailey (James Stewart). An adventurer at heart but a duty-bound person in reality, George and I both made life-altering decisions based on the cards circumstance dealt us—even if that deck was full of jokers we played the game by the rule of responsibility; I expect many others can say the same.

For those unfamiliar with George’s story, it is a simple one. From a very young age George exceeded expectation: he saved his brother (Todd Karns) from drowning and prevented his drunken pharmacist boss (H.B. Warner) from accidentally poisoning someone. When his father (Samuel S. Hinds) died of a stroke he forwent a trip to Europe and then college to head the family’s struggling building and loan company. Instead of spending $2,000 on his honeymoon he used it to stave off a run on the bank.  He invested in a town, Bedford Falls, and a group of people that at heart he wanted nothing more to do than to escape.  Along the way he married a girl (Donna Reed) he knew worshipped him, and agreed to live in a ramshackle house filled with children that required he continue in a job he hated in a town too small for his ambition. And then a bit of ironic circumstance slapped poor George in the face: his undoing was to come at the hands of his own obedience to duty and responsibility.  This, no doubt, was the last bitter pill that George could allow himself to swallow, and so he took it believing that at least he did what was best for others.  Ah, but what would have life been like for all those who benefitted from George’s benevolence and self-sacrifice if he had never existed?  It takes an angel (Henry Travers) seeking his wings to show George that what he viewed as a failed existence was of significant importance to so many others.  

In the end, It’s a Wonderful Life, is a redemption tale. Upon release some critics found the movie too sentimental and said that it idealized an unrealistic world.  By this time just about any film from director Frank Capra was labeled as overly-sentimental by many critics (perhaps you are familiar with the term “Capra-corn”?), and so many overlooked the universal theme of circumstance—it touches everyone.  And, so this corny film that lost $525,000 in 1946, now draws millions of viewers every Christmas. I’ve heard many people say that they watch it to remind themselves that perhaps they didn’t live the life they wanted, but at least they lived the life they got.  They, like George Bailey (and myself), endure the circumstances of life. Perhaps you are not a religious person—you are the perfect candidate for this film which Capra made to combat atheism—but there is one particular Bible verse that applies to this movie. It is written in James 5:11 that “we count them happy which endure”.  Happily, the spirit of It’s a Wonderful Life continues to endure today. 

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