A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 49 DON’T BE ALARMED LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THOSE CHAINS ARE MADE OF CHROME STEEL KING KONG / 1933 IN CONTEXT K ing Kong was probably the movie is full of iconic scenes, first true special-effects including a memorable climax in GENRE blockbuster. It is the simple which Kong bats away a biplane as Monster movie story of a huge ape discovered on he clings to the top of the Empire an uncharted island, which he State Building. DIRECTORS shares with other giant creatures, Merian C. Cooper, including dinosaurs. The ape Kong The movie’s secret was to portray Ernest B. Schoedsack is captured and brought to New the ape sympathetically. Kong is York for people to stare at, only for protective of his female captive, and WRITERS him to break free from his chains only attacks when provoked. Kong’s James Ashmore Creelman, and go on a rampage. tormentor, Carl Denham (Robert Ruth Rose, Edgar Wallace Armstrong), who exhibits Kong as The stop-motion effects look the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” is STARS creaky today. Yet such is the power the movie’s villain. And when Kong Fay Wray, Robert of the storytelling that it can move finally tumbles from the skyscraper, Armstrong, Bruce Cabot the viewer in a way that is beyond it is a moment of tragedy—the many slicker modern movies. The audience is on his side. ■ BEFORE 1925 An adaptation of Arthur Ann (Fay Wray) Conan Doyle’s novel, The Lost is terrified of Kong World features humans at first, but later battling with dinosaurs. tries to save him. In New York, he AFTER escapes to look 1949 Cooper and Schoedsack for her, leading his team up for another adventure captor Denham to featuring a giant ape with say, “It was beauty Mighty Joe Young. killed the beast.” 1963 Inspired by King Kong, What else to watch: The Lost World (1925) ■ Mighty Joe Young (1949) ■ animator Ray Harryhausen Clash of the Titans (1981) ■ Jurassic Park (1993) ■ King Kong (2005) works on stop-motion classic Jason and the Argonauts.
50 WAR IS DECLARED! DOWN WITH MONITORS AND PUNISHMENT! ZERO DE CONDUITE / 1933 IN CONTEXT J ean Vigo’s On its release, 41-minute Zero de Conduite GENRE Zero de provoked strong Surrealist comedy Conduite (Zero for reactions against Conduct) caused its irreverence DIRECTOR both outrage and for conventional Jean Vigo delight when it sensibilities. It premiered in Paris was banned in WRITER in April 1933. But France until 1946. Jean Vigo although its anarchic spirit was deplored Zero de Conduite STARS by the Establishment is perhaps best Jean Dasté, Louis Lefebvre, (it was banned by seen in the context Coco Golstein the French Ministry of French Surrealist of the Interior until cinema, following BEFORE 1946), with hindsight in the tradition of 1924 René Clair’s Surrealist the movie isn’t really all that René Clair and Luis Buñuel, who short, Entr’acte, plays with political, at least not in the way that threw narrative sense out the the frame rate to produce a the authorities first perceived it. window, juxtaposed random images, spooky slow-motion effect. and often morphed into strange scenarios with bizarre dialogue. 1929 Director Luis Buñuel These were serious works of art, teams up with artist Salvador aiming to explore the subconscious, Dalí to make the Surrealist yet also simply irreverent. movie Un Chien Andalou. One of the most poetic A child’s-eye view AFTER films ever made, and one The movie was funded by a private 1934 Vigo’s only full-length patron, who paid Vigo to create movie, L’Atalante, tells the of the most influential. a story based on his childhood poetic story of a newly married Pauline Kael experiences of boarding school. This couple living on a barge. was not to be a nostalgic trip down memory lane for the director, but an 1968 Lindsay Anderson’s If… attempt to recreate the state of being depicts a rebellion in a British a child. Some of the movie’s rough public school.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 51 See also: Entr’acte (1924) ■ Un Chien Andalou (1929, pp.330–31) ■ À propos de Nice (1930) ■ L’Age d’Or (1930) ■ Jean Taris, Swimming Champion (1931) ■ L’Atalante (1934) ■ The 400 Blows (1959, pp.150–55) ■ If… (1968) The boys’ revolution against the school’s stuffed-shirt authorities takes the form of an anarchic pillow fight—for Vigo, the essence of the spirit of childhood. edges can be attributed to Vigo’s (Delphin), a tiny, ridiculous-looking sequence, he takes them all with inexperience as a director, but there man with a bushy beard, is also him as he follows a young woman are many deliberately eccentric pitted against them. On the boys’ who has caught his eye. flourishes—such as a cartoon side is the young teacher Huguet sketch that suddenly comes to life. (Jean Dasté), who indulges his The boys themselves are all charges with impersonations of serial offenders who seem to spend Diving straight in Charlie Chaplin and plays soccer every Sunday in detention (hence The beginning of the movie with them. In one especially odd the “zero marks for conduct” implied dispenses with any sense of by the movie’s title). Throughout the buildup—a simple title card reads, Jean Vigo Director movie, they plot their revenge, but “After the holidays, back to school.” when it comes, the revolution starts A boy, Causset (Louis Lefebvre), on Jean Vigo was born in 1905, not with a grand dramatic gesture a train with only a sleeping adult for the son of an anarchist. His but with a long pillow fight. Taking company, welcomes his old friend father spent most of his life on to the school’s rooftop, they hurl Bruel (Coco Golstein) as they the run and was murdered in objects down at the school board, prepare to return to the boredom prison when Jean was 12, but a row of mannequins lined up for of boarding school. The journey he cast a long shadow over the the annual “commemoration day” is filled with a sense of freedom, director’s short but influential celebration. The joy of Vigo’s movie curtailed when they arrive at the career. After a series of shorts, is that the boys don’t really try to station, to be confronted by an Vigo made his lone feature, beat the system—they want to rise aloof prefect, played by an adult. L’Atalante, in 1934. Although above it, as gallant rebels driven by initially cut to ribbons by the irrepressible spirit of childhood. In the battle to control the boys, distributors, the movie’s poetry the prefect is revealed as a spy who found favor in the 1940s, going Vigo did not live to see his steals their things. The housemaster movie achieve recognition, but his legacy went on to inform the works of directors including François Truffaut and Lindsay Anderson. ■ on to inspire the founders of the French New Wave. An ill man throughout his life, Vigo died of tuberculosis at just 29. As his work gained fame in France, the Prix Jean Vigo was set up in 1951 for first-time directors. Key movies 1930 À propos de Nice 1933 Zero de Conduite 1934 L’Atalante
52 TO A NEW WORLD OF GODS AND MONSTERS! THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN / 1935 IN CONTEXT T hrough the 1930s, Universal life, only for armed villagers to Studios made a string of drag him away. He learns to speak, GENRE hits adapting classic horror saying, “I want friend like me,” but Horror literature into mainstream movies. even Dr. Frankenstein’s efforts to What separates James Whale’s provide him with a bride backfire, DIRECTOR Frankenstein movies from the other when the bride also rejects him. In James Whale horror movies in the universal the end, The Bride of Frankenstein canon is its empathy for its monster. feels as much a morality tale as WRITERS This is never more apparent than a horror movie, suggesting that William Hurlbut, John L. in The Bride of Frankenstein, in monstrousness might be no more Balderston (screenplay); which the monster implores Dr. than skin deep. ■ Mary Wollstonecraft Frankenstein to build him a mate. Shelley (novel) Morality tale STARS Much of the movie’s narrative Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, presents Frankenstein’s monster Valerie Hobson, Elsa as lost in a world to which he Lanchester does not belong. He longs for friendship, but is rejected at BEFORE every turn. At one point, a 1931 James Whale adapts blind man introduces him to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. the pleasures of domestic Karloff stars as the monster. An excited monster 1933 Whale films H. G. Wells’s (Boris Karloff) story The Invisible Man, about steadies his bride a scientist who finds a way to (Elsa Lanchester) as become invisible. she comes to life in Dr Frankenstein’s AFTER laboratory. 1936 Whale moves away from the horror genre, directing a What else to watch: Metropolis (1927, pp.32–33) ■ Frankenstein (1931) ■ musical adaptation of the play Dracula (1931) ■ The Mummy (1932) ■ Gods and Monsters (1998) Show Boat.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 53 MAGIC MIRROR ON THE WALL WHO IS THE FAIREST ONE OF ALL? SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS / 1937 © 1937 Disney R eleased in 1937, Snow audience, while at the same time White and the Seven investing it with enough jeopardy IN CONTEXT Dwarfs was the first full- to create tension. Snow White length movie made by the Walt deliberately terrifies its young GENRE Disney Company. Disney sought to viewers, from the sequence where Animation, musical combine the slapstick tone of its Snow White panics in the woods as successful short movies with an the trees come alive, to the scenes DIRECTOR injection of the macabre by turning in which the malevolent Queen David Hand to one of the Grimm Brothers’ most gleefully plots the girl’s death. By famous fairy tales, the story of an the time the prince awakens the WRITERS evil queen hunting an innocent girl heroine with a kiss, evil has been Ted Sears, Richard who is declared “the fairest of all” by vanquished, and fear conquered. Creedon, Otto Englander, a magic mirror. This set the template Disney realized that, without the Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, for Disney movies for the next 80 authenticity of conflict, the happy Merrill De Maris, Dorothy years, from Cinderella to Frozen. resolution at the end would never Ann Blank, Webb Smith be heartfelt. ■ (screenplay); Jacob Grimm, Adding jeopardy Wilhelm Grimm (fairy tale) One of the challenges for filmmakers Snow White making children’s movies is to keep hides from the STARS the material appropriate for the Adriana Caselotti, Lucille wicked Queen La Verne, Moroni Olsen in the dwarfs’ home. She BEFORE cooks and 1928 Disney releases the cleans for Mickey Mouse short Steamboat them, and Willie, its first sound cartoon. also makes AFTER them wash 1950 Disney revisits Grimms’ their hands. fairy tales with Cinderella. © 1937 Disney 2013 Disney’s Frozen, loosely inspired by Hans Christian What else to watch: Fantasia (1940) ■ Pinocchio (1940) ■ Dumbo (1941) ■ Andersen’s The Snow Queen, Cinderella (1950) ■ Beauty and the Beast (1991) ■ Frozen (2013) is an enormous hit.
I’VE A FEELING WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE THE WIZARD OF OZ / 1939
56 THE WIZARD OF OZ P lenty of big movies from the I would watch the movie every classical Hollywood period day when I was two. I had a IN CONTEXT have faded into obscurity. hard time understanding that Other movies remain respected by I couldn’t go into the film, GENRE the critics, but modern audiences because it felt so real to me. Musical, adventure struggle to connect with them. Zooey Deschanel Then there are movies like Victor DIRECTOR Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz, which in the documentary film Victor Fleming not only stands the test of time, but These Amazing Shadows, 2011 continues to entertain. The movie WRITERS is discovered and embraced by a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Noel Langley, Florence each new generation as passionately Cowardly Lion—she must travel Ryerson, Edgar Allan as the previous one, and the story along the Yellow Brick Road, while Woolf (screenplay); has crossed over into a global avoiding the attentions of the L. Frank Baum (novel) cultural consciousness. Even if they Wicked Witch of the West. Her have never seen the movie, people destination is the Emerald City, STARS can sing along to “Somewhere over where the mysterious Wizard of Judy Garland, Frank the Rainbow,” and will understand Oz himself resides. The story is Morgan, Ray Bolger, the reference when someone taps probably familiar, but what really Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, their shoes and says “There’s no sets apart The Wizard of Oz is not Margaret Hamilton place like home.” The Wizard of Oz so much the “what” as the “how”. It is now more than 70 years old, but it is a movie in service of spectacle, BEFORE remains a key picture in the making a movie that sets out to test the 1938 Judy Garland stars of modern cinema. limits of the newly born medium alongside Mickey Rooney of cinema in every frame. in Love Finds Andy Hardy. A magnificent spectacle The movie’s story sees Dorothy AFTER (played by the 17-year-old Judy 1939 A few months after The Garland), a young girl growing up Wizard of Oz, Fleming’s Gone on a Kansas farm, caught in the with the Wind is released. eye of an impressively rendered twister and magically transported 1954 Garland stars opposite to the Land of Oz. Here, along James Mason in hit musical with a ragtag trio of misfits— A Star Is Born, her first movie in four troubled years. Minute by minute 00:19 00:58 01:21 The house crashes in Oz, The friends arrive at Toto leads the friends to the 00:11 killing the Wicked Witch the Emerald City, where the Castle where they are trapped Dorothy runs away from home of the East. The Munchkins Wizard agrees to grant their by the Witch. She sets fire to the in Kansas to save her dog Toto celebrate. The Wicked Witch wishes if they bring him Scarecrow. Dorothy throws water, from an officious neighbor, Miss of the West swears revenge. the Wicked Witch’s broom. and in doing so melts the Witch. Gulch. Professor Marvel, a fortune- teller, persuades her to return. 00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:42 00:17 00:34 01:14 01:28 A mighty twister develops, Dorothy befriends In her crystal ball, the Toto exposes the lifting Dorothy’s farmhouse the Scarecrow on the Witch watches the friends Wizard as a sham. into a spin. Miss Gulch on her Yellow Brick Road, enter the Haunted Forest. The Good Witch tells bicycle is transformed into followed soon after by She sends flying monkeys Dorothy she can return a witch on a broomstick. the Tin Man and the to capture Dorothy. home by tapping her Cowardly Lion. ruby slippers together.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 57 What else to watch: Pinocchio (1940) ■ A Star Is Born (1954) ■ Return to Oz (1985) ■ Wild at Heart (1990) ■ Spirited Away (2001, pp.296–97) When Dorothy arrives in Oz, viewers time to pan around Munchkinland, be,” dazzling with its no-expenses- see her open her eyes in faded, lingering on the extravagantly spared production. In that sense, sepia-toned black and white, the constructed set as its wave of it is very much a forerunner of the frame crackling with the technical hallucinatory colors hits the viewer modern blockbuster, with musical imperfections of the time. But from all angles. Then come the numbers in place of action set pieces. as she opens the door and steps special effects, a musical number outside, they glimpse Oz and are featuringhundreds of actors, and Character-led story overwhelmed with Technicolor. In a showdown with the antagonist, Although the story is crafted to be 1939, when it was released, this the Wicked Witch of the West (the the perfect vehicle to show off the would have been the very first time scenery and costume designers wonderful new toys Hollywood had many audience members had seen were encouraged to use as much at its disposal, it is nonetheless a color movie. As the color as possible to take full deeply rooted in character and scene plays out, the advantage of the Technicolor emotion. While we discover a new director Victor format). The whole time, viewers are Fleming is fully adjusting to seeing color for the first world, we do so through aware of this the prism of a distinct fact and he time. This is a movie with the framing device. Whereas takes his approach that “if less is more, most adventure movies then how much more must more feature a group of ❯❯ When Dorothy first meets the Tin Man (Jack Haley), he is in desperate need of an oiling.
58 THE WIZARD OF OZ Critics have interpreted motifs sees the orphan Dorothy undergo a formative transition from a child and characters from the Wizard of Oz The rusted Tin protected in her home to navigating a new and dangerous world, relying as symbolic of US political and Man may be a on her trio of friends—symbolically, the emotions, intellect, and courage. economic issues. metaphor for the state Dream world of workers in the stalled Throughout the movie, the action stays intimate even as it becomes Dorothy’s steel industry. epic, and each character is already strangely familiar. The Wicked slippers (silver in Witch of the West is a dead ringer for Dorothy’s evil neighbor, Miss the book) may symbolize The Cowardly Lion Gulch, who wants to have Dorothy’s a silver standard, while the was a popular dog Toto put down. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion all Yellow Brick Road is the caricature of pacifist strongly resemble the farmhands from back home, while the Wizard gold standard. politician William of Oz appears to be Professor Marvel, a phoney fortune-teller. The Jennings Bryan. most prominent characters in Oz mirror characters back home in The Scarecrow The Emerald Kansas, making it clear that this is may be a metaphor for City, an illusion of Dorothy’s dream world. its citizens, may be the dire condition of allegorical of the The movie revels in spectacle, in Midwest farmers in the greenback, the first US witches and woods, in lions, tigers, and bears. Yet at its core, it is a tale Depression era. paper money. of friendship and personal growth, and balancing the two may be the characters united by a common that can save them. All four of the secret to its longevity. A memorable goal, here each of our heroes is travelers are on their own “hero’s story, told with imagination and in searching for something they lack. journey,” and it is just as important vivid splendor, it is a movie that Not fame or fortune, but a personal to the viewer that the Tin Man transcends its time. ■ quality, something they believe should get a heart as it is to see will make them whole. Dorothy the Wicked Witch defeated. lacks a home, the Tin Man a heart, the Scarecrow a brain, and the Although the movie marked a Cowardly Lion his courage. groundbreaking step in terms of technical achievement, its success Each character in the magical also lies in keeping close to the world of Oz is introduced to the principles of simple storytelling and audience in a location where they in its universal appeal as a “quest” are vulnerable, where they think movie that follows the rite-of- the Wizard’s help is the only thing passage trajectory. The audience Victor Fleming Director Born in California in 1889, Victor Fleming never again reached Fleming was a stuntman before those heights, but he went on to rising through the ranks of the make the critically acclaimed Dr. camera department to become a Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Guy director. His first movie, When the Named Joe (1943). He died in Clouds Roll By, was released in 1949, a year after the release 1919. His greatest year was 1939, of his last movie, Joan of Arc. when he directed The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. Key movies He was hired as a last-minute substitute on both, replacing 1925 Lord Jim Richard Thorpe on the former and 1939 Gone with the Wind George Cukor on the latter. The 1939 The Wizard of Oz two movies won several Oscars. 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 59 The movie was a success on its initial release, but the cost of the production meant that it did not register a profit for its producers MGM until 1949.
60 EVERYBODY HAS THEIR REASONS THE RULES OF THE GAME / 1939 IN CONTEXT T he Rules of the Game (La on humanity’s triumph over class. Règle du jeu) is a biting At its premiere on July 7, 1939, the GENRE satire about the French audience booed. In October that Comedy of manners upper classes on the brink of World year, the authorities banned the War II, who are endlessly frivolous movie, as “depressing, morbid, DIRECTOR despite, or perhaps because of, the immoral... an undesirable influence Jean Renoir impending conflict. over the young.” WRITERS At the time of its release in Rediscovering the movie Jean Renoir, Carl Koch 1939, The Rules of the Game was During the war, the original an expensive flop, shunned by the negatives of the movie STARS public and critics alike—in part were thought to have Nora Gregor, Marcel Dalio, because of its contrast to director been destroyed in a Paulette Dubost, Roland Jean Renoir’s previous movie, bombing raid. In the Toutain, Jean Renoir Grand Illusion (1937), a reflection BEFORE The poacher 1937 Renoir’s movie about Marceau (Julien prisoners of war in World Carette, left) is War I, Grand Illusion is the offered a job by first foreign-language movie Robert (Marcel to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Dalio) to help him catch 1938 Renoir’s adaptation of rabbits. Émile Zola’s novel The Human Beast is a huge success. AFTER 1941 After the critical and box-office failure of The Rules of the Game, Renoir makes his way to Hollywood. His first US movie is Swamp Water.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 61 What else to watch: Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) ■ Grand Illusion (1937) ■ Citizen Kane (1941, pp.66–71) ■ French Cancan (1954) ■ Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) ■ Gosford Park (2001) late 1950s, two movie enthusiasts passes in front of their guns. Love is a found them in boxes at the However, it was not Renoir’s game that is played according to bombed-out film lab. With Renoir’s purpose in this movie to complex, dangerous rules in the help, they painstakingly pieced the demonize the upper classes. enclosed, upper-class world of the movie. negatives together. The restored He presents them as children, version was premiered at the 1959 trapped in a game they feel Venice Film Festival to acclaim. compelled to play. “The awful thing about life is this:” Country retreat says Octave, “Everybody Renoir’s movie focuses on a has their reasons.” weekend at the country estate of society lady Christine (Nora Gregor) In order to heighten the and her husband Robert (Marcel sense of being trapped— Dalio). Relationships gradually within the country house unravel, and the weekend will and in the claustrophobic end in a tragedy. André (Roland social games of the upper Toutain), a last-minute invitee, has class—Renoir developed just flown solo across the Atlantic a new way of filming with to impress Christine. When she superfast lenses to allow fails to turn up to greet him, André extreme depth of field. refuses to play by the rules and act This novel “deep-field” the hero in interviews, something technique meant that he for which he will be made to pay. could keep the foreground His friend Octave (played by action in focus while people Renoir) obtained the invitation for were seen flitting to and fro in the André, but he too has ulterior background, carrying on with their own personal stories. ■ motives. Octave hopes to set André up with Robert’s erstwhile That’s also part of the times— mistress Geneviève, distracting today everyone lies. André from Christine and Geneviève from Robert. André / The Rules of the Game There is intrigue both upstairs Jean Renoir Director and down. Later, a gun will be fired and tragedy will strike after The son of the reception of The Rules of the a bloody case of mistaken identity. impressionist Game, Renoir moved to the US, But Renoir makes sure to let viewers painter Pierre- where he enjoyed only limited Auguste success for movies such as know that even this changes Renoir, Jean Swamp Water (1941). He died in nothing in the cloistered lives Renoir was born in 1894 in Beverly Hills, California, in 1979. of his characters. They just Montmartre, Paris, and grew up keep playing on as before. among artists. He started out as Key movies The movie depicts a ceramicist, then tried his hand the callousness of the at screenwriting in the 1920s. 1931 La Chienne ruling class—no His early movies were flops, but 1937 Grand Illusion more tellingly than he scored major successes in the 1938 The Human Beast during a rabbit late 1930s. After the poor 1939 The Rules of the Game hunt, in which the men blast away at any animal that
62 TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY GONE WITH THE WIND / 1939 IN CONTEXT Now viewed nostalgically Dressing Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) for as a relic of a long-gone the ball, Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) GENRE Hollywood, Gone with the upbraids her newly widowed mistress Historical romance Wind was itself a rose-tinted portrait for trying to ensnare a married man. of a bygone age. Its preamble pays DIRECTOR tribute to a lost America, in a paean Depression, and audiences were Victor Fleming to the Old South: “Here in this pretty swept off their feet by the movie’s world, Gallantry took its last bow. sheer scale, romance, and blazing WRITERS Here was the last ever to be seen color palette. Sidney Howard of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of (screenplay); Margaret Master and of Slave. Look for it only Epic adaptation Mitchell (novel) in books, for it is no more than a What is now regarded as a great dream remembered, a Civilization historical epic was a work of fiction STARS gone with the wind...” In 1939, by Margaret Mitchell, whose best- Vivien Leigh, Clark America was still smarting from selling Civil War love story was first Gable, Leslie Howard, the grinding poverty of the Great published in 1936. Before the year Olivia de Havilland BEFORE 1915 D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (or The Clansman), an epic chronicle of the Civil War, is condemned as racist. 1933 George Cukor directs Little Women, a Civil War era family drama adapted from the novels by Louisa May Alcott. AFTER 1948 Vivien Leigh takes the title role in Alexander Korda’s adaptation of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 63 What else to watch: The General (1926) ■ Little Women (1933) ■ A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, pp.116–17) ■ Cold Mountain (2003) ■ 12 Years a Slave (2013) A landmark in movie novel’s more openly racist passages Vivien Leigh Actress history, and only the very are simply sidestepped. Hattie blasé can say of it that frankly McDaniel, who played Scarlett’s Born in Darjeeling, India, in they don’t give a damn. house slave Mammy, won one of the 1913, Vivien Leigh shot to movie’s 10 Oscars—the first African- international fame with Gone Philip French American to be so honored. with the Wind, becoming the first British actress to win a The Observer, 2010 Ultimately this is Scarlett’s story. Best Actress Oscar. She was While the movie ends with her alone, equally accomplished on stage was out, producer David O. Selznick undone by her own selfishness, it is and on screen, and won her had committed to making the also a metaphor for America as a second Oscar for playing movie version. It was a gargantuan land of hope and regeneration. Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar task. The draft screenplay ran to six Although she is rebuffed by Rhett, Named Desire, a role she had hours and took four writers to edit. who shuns her desperate pleas for It is said that 1,400 unknowns and reconciliation with a curt, “Frankly, first played in the dozens of stars were seen for the my dear, I don’t give a damn,” the theater. Described by role of its heroine, Scarlett O’Hara. last line of the movie belongs to director George Cukor Having waited a year for actor Scarlett. “I’ll go home,” she says, as “a consummate Clark Gable to be free, Selznick thinking of her home at Tara, her actress, hampered by then fired director George Cukor family, and her roots, “and I’ll think beauty,” Leigh had a just three weeks into filming and of some way to get him back. After troubled private life; replaced him with Victor Fleming. all... tomorrow is another day.” ■ her fragile mental and physical health Love, loss, and longing resulted in a limited The movie is, at heart, a love output. She succumbed triangle writ large: Scarlett (Vivien to tuberculosis in 1967, Leigh) is in love with Ashley Wilkes and died at 53. (Leslie Howard), who is engaged to marry his cousin. On the rebound Key movies she catches the eye of Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). The violence of war 1939 Gone with aptly reflects the tortured love the Wind affair between Rhett and Scarlett, 1951 A Streetcar captured in stunning Technicolor Named Desire by cinematographer Ernest Haller. The movie’s premiere in The movie’s depiction of, and 1939 in Atlanta, Georgia, drew open nostalgia for, the slave- one million people to the city. based society of the Old South This poster dates to 1967, when betrays many questionable the movie was rereleased in a assumptions, but some of the wide-screen print.
64 YOU’RE WONDERFUL, IN A LOATHSOME SORT OF WAY HIS GIRL FRIDAY / 1940 IN CONTEXT H oward Hawks’s sharply have exclaimed, “Hey, it’s even scripted screwball comedy better with a woman and a man GENRE about the daily newspaper than with two men.” And so, in Screwball comedy world is one of the smartest movies Charles Lederer’s screenplay, the of the black-and-white era. Famous two newspapermen DIRECTOR for its overlapping, machine-gun- become a Howard Hawks fast dialogue, it portrays journalists recently who will stoop to anything in their divorced WRITERS hunt for a good story. The movie’s couple: hard- Charles Lederer press hotshot leads lie, cheat, and boiled editor (screenplay); Ben Hecht, connive, yet they win the viewer Walter Burns Charles MacArthur (play) over with their charm, energy, and brilliant comic timing. STARS Cary Grant, Play adaptation Rosalind Russell His Girl Friday was based on a 1928 play about the BEFORE corrupt world of the press, 1931 The first movie version The Front Page, of of the stage play The Front which a movie version Page is directed by Lewis had already been Milestone, and stars Adolphe made. In The Front Menjou and Pat O’Brien. Page, the battle of wits is between two AFTER newspapermen, but Hawks made 1941 Grant and Russell a key change. After reading reprise their roles for a radio scenes from the play with his version of the movie, broadcast girlfriend, Hawks is said to by The Screen Guild Theater. Walter (Cary Grant) schemes 1974 Billy Wilder directs a to prevent his ex-wife Hildy remake of The Front Page, (Rosalind Russell) from marrying starring Jack Lemmon and another by reminding her how Walter Matthau. much she loves her job.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 65 What else to watch: Bringing Up Baby (1938) ■ The Philadelphia Story (1940) ■ Roman Holiday (1953) ■ The Seven-Year Itch (1955) ■ The Apartment (1960) and Hildy Johnson, his ex-wife, Howard Hawks Director who is an ace journalist. This switch added a romance angle to Howard Hawks the silent Road to Glory. When the satire, playing with ideas of directed more he moved into talkies, his 1932 what men and women want in life. than 40 classic gangster thriller Scarface was a Hollywood huge success, and there followed A woman’s dilemma movies, but it a string of movies, among them In the opening scene, Rosalind was only late in his life that he “screwball” comedies with Cary Russell’s Hildy, struggling to get came to be recognized as one Grant such as Bringing Up Baby a word in edgewise in a quick-fire of the directing greats. Born and His Girl Friday. Later movies verbal sparring match with her in Goshen, Indiana, in 1896, included movie noir classics ex-husband and ex-boss Walter Hawks moved with his family such as The Big Sleep, and the (Cary Grant), announces that she to California in 1910 and was Western Rio Bravo (1959). is about to marry insurance man drawn into the movie business, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). working briefly as a prop man Key movies on a handful of movies such as Bruce is dull, but Hildy says The Little American (1917). 1932 Scarface that she wants to escape from the After serving in World War I 1938 Bringing up Baby beastly, corrupt world of journalism as an airman, he returned to 1940 His Girl Friday to become “a human being” who Hollywood, where he wrote and 1944 To Have and Have Not lives a “normal” life as a wife and directed his first movie in 1926, 1946 The Big Sleep mother. It’s a choice between home and career, but Walter is sure that the thrill of the press world is Hildy matches him every step of too alluring for her to quit as star the way, which is why, of course, reporter. The movie revolves around they are made for each other. ■ his efforts to remind her of this, as he involves her in an unfolding news story about the upcoming execution of convicted murderer Earl Williams (John Qualen). Walter behaves outrageously in his efforts to win Hildy back. He barely misses a beat when Molly, the girl who has befriended Williams, leaps to her death from a window. Yet Grant endows Walter with such panache and sheer cleverness that the viewer roots for him as he reels Hildy in. No wonder Hildy says to him, “Walter, you’re wonderful, in a loathsome sort of way.” And yet Who do you think The movie uses much of the script I am, a crook? from the original play, but Hawks also encouraged the actors to ad-lib. Walter / His Girl Friday
IT ISN’T ENOUGH TO TELL US WHAT A MAN DID. YOU’VE GOT TO TELL US WHO HE WAS CITIZEN KANE / 1941
68 CITIZEN KANE I don’t think any word can Your faithful bystander reports explain a man’s life,” says that he has just seen a picture IN CONTEXT Charles Foster Kane, the which he thinks must be the towering press-baron protagonist of GENRE Citizen Kane. And yet the genius best picture he ever saw. Mystery drama of this movie—cowritten, starring, John O’Hara and directed by Orson Welles at the DIRECTOR age of just 25—is that it does just Newsweek, 1941 Orson Welles that: takes a single word that captures the origin and essence of temporal devices. The narrative WRITERS the mercurial Kane, and teases the then switches to a newsreel clip Orson Welles, audience with it for nearly two that recalls the life and deeds of the Herman J. Mankiewicz hours, before offering an enigmatic great Kane. It shows the building clue to its meaning. of his stately home, Xanadu, a STARS sprawling mansion that he fills with Orson Welles, Joseph Shot in secrecy to preempt art (“Enough for ten museums—the Cotten, Dorothy legal attempts to block production, loot of the world”). It shows Kane’s Comingore and ambiguously billed as a love influence spreading across the US story, Welles braced himself for and then across the world, as he BEFORE trouble upon its release. Kane’s stands on a balcony next to Adolf 1938 Welles directs a radio character was not only based on a adaptation of H. G. Wells’s living person, but one who was War of the Worlds, about an extremely powerful. invasion from Mars. Its news- bulletin style is said to have Citizen Kane is a murder caused some listeners to mystery without a murder, even believe that it was real. though it famously opens with Kane, in old age, as a dying man. AFTER Starting his movie at the end is just 1958 Welles’s noir thriller Touch the first of Welles’s many innovative of Evil tells a story of corruption in a Mexican border town. Old age. It’s the only disease…that you don’t look forward to being cured of. 1962 Welles makes a visually stunning adaptation of Franz Bernstein / Citizen Kane Kafka’s novel The Trial. Orson Welles Director Welles’s life mirrors that of including the final cut for Citizen Charles Foster Kane, in that he Kane. His next movie The was taken in by a family friend, Magnificent Ambersons, was having lost both parents at 15. In butchered by RKO, the first of 1934, he began working on radio many creative quarrels that plays and in 1937 founded the would plague his career. He died Mercury Theater—two things that at 70 in 1985. would bring him great notoriety in 1938 when the company performed Key movies War of the Worlds as a live news broadcast. Welles was approached 1941 Citizen Kane by RKO Studios in Hollywood, 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons where he was given unheard of 1958 Touch of Evil privileges for a new director, 1962 The Trial
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 69 What else to watch: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) ■ The Lady from Shanghai (1947) ■ The Third Man (1949, pp.100–03) ■ Touch of Evil (1958, p.333) ■ The Trial (1962) ■ Me and Orson Welles (2008) Minute by minute 00:33 01:26 01:36 Bernstein tells Thompson of Thompson speaks to Susan. Susan takes an overdose, 00:12 the early days at the Inquirer, She describes her marriage to saying that she does not Following a newsreel of in which Kane wrote his Kane, and how he forced her want to sing any more. Kane’s life, reporter Jerry “Declaration of Principles.” to continue singing. Kane slaps her, and she Thompson is charged with walks out on him. discovering the meaning of Kane’s final word, “Rosebud.” 00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:30 01:59 00:18 00:49 01:32 01:49 Thompson reads Thatcher’s Leland recounts After Susan’s first night, The butler tells memoirs, which tell the story of Kane’s unhappy first Kane writes Leland’s review Thompson that Kane the young Charles Kane, whom marriage, and how he for him, truthfully describing trashed the room after Thatcher had adopted, and began the affair with her performance as terrible. Susan left, and said how Kane first took over the Susan that would end He then fires Leland and they “Rosebud” on seeing Inquirer newspaper. his political career. never speak again. a snow globe. Hitler (cutting to a shot of Kane declaring, pompously, “You can take my word for it, there will be no war”). Next come the women in his life, and how an illicit affair cut short his political career. The audience is shown his rise, fall, and withdrawal from public life. The riddle of Rosebud When the newsreel ends, its producer isn’t satisfied: he wants to know who Charles Foster Kane was, not what he did, and sends reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) to discover the meaning of the word Kane uttered with his last breath: “Rosebud.” At this point, Citizen Kane essentially becomes two movies. The framework is Kane’s life as recounted by his friends and enemies, as Thompson squares up to this extraordinary riddle wrapped in a larger-than-life enigma. But Welles also slyly offers the audience other scenes from Kane’s life in flashback, a ❯❯ In happier days, Kane and Leland stand surrounded by copies of the Inquirer. Kane intends to use the paper to campaign for ordinary folk, a pledge that Leland will later throw back at him.
70 CITIZEN KANE technique that will finally allow Kane through the window, playing Welles.) Yet Welles took his camera him to reveal the truth that will in the snow, oblivious. It is a simple so far down that, for a scene in elude Thompson and all the others. perspective trick imported from which Kane talks with his friend theater, and it is used to capture Leland after losing his first election, A good deal of the movie’s the tragedy that befalls Kane. It a hole had to be dug in the concrete artistic success can be attributed to is the moment in which the life studio floor. Welles’s experience of working in he should have led ends. theater. Citizen Kane is a movie that Toland’s input is a vital part of not only uses temporal devices in Innovative shots Citizen Kane’s legacy, since, the narrative, but spatial ones, too, Welles and cameraman Gregg although it would seal Welles’s so that it can sometimes almost Toland employed such spatial status as one of America’s first seem like a 3D movie. In a crucial devices throughout the movie, a feat auteur directors, this was very early scene, Thompson discovers achieved with deep-focus lenses much a collaborative effort. Also how Kane was born to a poor family and camera angles so low that Kane vital was the risk Welles took with who discovered gold on their land may appear, variously, as a titan his cast and production team—for and, as part of a business deal, and as a gangster. This in itself whom Citizen Kane launched their handed the boy over to a wealthy was a novelty, since prior to Citizen careers in movies. Many of the actors guardian. As the bargain is made in Kane filmmakers rarely used such were unknown to audiences—they the foreground, we see the young upward shots, for the simple reason came from Welles’s Mercury Theatre that few studios had ceilings due to group. His editor, Robert Wise, Leland (Joseph Cotten) speaks at the lighting and sound equipment. would soon begin a successful Kane’s political rally. Ultimately the (“A big lie in order to get all those directing career of his own; and the campaign, and their friendship, will terrible lights up there,” said score marked a debut for Bernard be derailed by Kane’s obsessive affair. Herrmann, later to form an
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 71 Parallel lives all too clear. It is a common fallacy that the movie flopped on release The character of Charles Foster Kane was a brutal portrait of newspaper (it was the sixth-highest grossing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Determined to shut the movie down, movie of the year and nominated Hearst had negatives burned and waged a campaign to discredit Welles. for nine Oscars), but a blanket ban by Hearst’s vast media empire Kane vs Hearst ensured that its success was short- lived. Although it satirizes several Kane owns the New York Kane collects “enough for ten cherished ideals, including the Inquirer; the New York Journal museums”; Hearst amassed American dream (Kane sees no irony is in Hearst’s media empire thousands of art objects in being an autocratic capitalist who claims to fight for the common man), The fictional Kane aspires Kane has a mistress, singer Citizen Kane does have sympathy to be US president, as did Susan Alexander; Hearst’s for its subject. With Kane dead and the real-life Hearst was actress Marion Davies Thompson unable to finish his quest, Welles’s camera takes viewers Kane lives on the vast Xanadu Kane’s mother finds a gold through the clutter of Xanadu, where estate in Florida; Hearst lived mine; Hearst was the son of Kane’s vast and gaudy art collection at Hearst Castle, California a gold-mining millionaire is being packed away. extensive creative partnership moment, having his affair Finally, the shot settles on the with Alfred Hitchcock. But more discovered by his wife, Kane simply sled, named Rosebud, that Kane than anything, the movie’s says, dryly, “I had no idea you had was playing with in the snow brilliance is due to its script, which this flair for melodrama, Emily.” outside his parents’ shack. No one Welles cowrote with screenwriter knows but us, and Kane, that this Herman J. Mankiewicz. Although Parallels with Hearst sled represents the key moment of Mankiewicz’s exact contribution Despite the arguments over who his life: the moment he lost his has been disputed, often by Welles, wrote what, it is agreed that it innocence and happiness. ■ the movie does bear extensive was Mankiewicz who first came up traces of Mankiewicz’s satirical with the idea for the movie. Having style: at one particularly loaded attained some success as a writer in the silent era, Mankiewicz The film’s style was became a sought-after script made with the ease and doctor, and it was in this capacity boldness and resource of that he came to know the press one who controls and is not tycoon William Randolph Hearst controlled by his medium. and his mistress, the movie actress Marion Davies. Although everyone Dilys Powell denied it—including Hearst, who behaved with a very Kane-like The Sunday Times, 1941 determination to destroy the movie and its makers’ reputations—the parallels between Hearst and Kane were Welles’s eye for publicity was evident in the posters for the original release, which talked up the movie without giving anything away.
72 OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS IN ALL THE TOWNS IN ALL THE WORLD, SHE WALKS INTO MINE CASABLANCA / 1942 IN CONTEXT M ade at the height of World choice, was anxious to move on War II, Casablanca is a to For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); GENRE romance set in neutral and by all accounts, there was no Romantic drama Morocco, just as the fighting is love lost between Humphrey Bogart getting uncomfortably close. DIRECTOR Warner Bros. promoted the movie Michael Curtiz Few of those working on the as a typical romance of its time, little production thought they were making thinking that it would become one of WRITERS a great movie. Ingrid Bergman, who the most popular movies ever made. J. J. and P. G. Epstein, had not been the producers’ first Howard E. Koch, Casey Robinson STARS Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid BEFORE 1938 Algiers, a romantic thriller starring Hedy Lamarr, is set in North Africa. 1941 The Maltese Falcon makes Humphrey Bogart a star. AFTER 1944 In To Have and Have Not, Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in another Resistance story.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 73 What else to watch: Only Angels Have Wings (1938) ■ The Maltese Falcon (1941, p.331) ■ To Have and Have Not (1944) ■ Brief Encounter (1945, p.332) ■ Notorious (1946) ■ Key Largo (1948) ■ Charade (1963) ■ Play It Again, Sam (1972) Sam, the pianist at Rick’s Café imagine. As we discover part way It is a movie (center), was played by Dooley Wilson. through the movie, Rick, the cynical, to play again, He was a band leader and a drummer, hard-drinking owner of Rick’s Café but not a piano player, and had to mime. Américain, an upmarket nightclub, and again. has been stung in Paris by the Sheila Johnston and Paul Henreid, who played his sudden desertion of his lover, Ilsa rival for Bergman’s heart. And yet (Bergman), as the Germans were The Daily Telegraph, 2014 the movie was an instant success. invading. Hurt, he has retreated to Casablanca, a town full of spies, But in a telling parallel with the At the end of the movie, Nazi collaborators, Resistance real war, such a neutral stance Bogart’s character Rick says, “It fighters, and desperate refugees. proves impossible. In his bar, doesn’t take much to see that the different factions end an evening problems of three little people don’t The shadow of war competing with their national ❯❯ amount to a hill of beans in this “I stick my neck out for nobody,” crazy world.” Casablanca manages says Rick. In reply to Major Strasser’s to make its audience feel that the question, “What is your nationality?” problems of these people are the Rick’s reply is, “I’m a drunkard.” most important thing they can Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By. Ilsa Lund / Casablanca
74 CASABLANCA anthems, and Rick must choose You’re getting on that plane with sides. He allows the band to Victor where you belong. play the Marseillaise to drown out the Germans. At the very time Rick / Casablanca Casablanca was being filmed, a previously neutral US joined the November 1942, the Allies were abandoned Rick. When Rick fight against Germany and Japan, advancing on the Axis powers to discovers that Ilsa and Laszlo need and, as it premiered in New York in capture Casablanca for real. his help, he is forced to make a choice. Does he keep the papers Rick tells Ilsa at the airport that When Ilsa arrives at his club, they need, and so keep Ilsa, or does she must get on the plane with her Rick is decidedly cool toward her, he let her go? In the end, Rick does Resistance-fighter husband, commenting wryly: “Of all the gin the noble thing, and puts Ilsa on a Victor Laszlo. joints in all the towns in all the plane to freedom with Laszlo. In world, she walks into mine.” a heartrending parting, as they stand by the plane, he explains But Ilsa still loves Rick. Her why she would regret it if she Resistance-fighter husband, stayed with him: “Maybe not today, Victor Laszlo (Henreid), turned maybe not tomorrow, up alive when she believed but soon and for him to be dead, and the rest of that is why she your life.” It’s a
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 75 Humphrey Bogart Actor It is about a man and Actors Henreid, Bogart, and Humphrey Bogart was a woman who are in love, Bergman did not know, until the final renowned for playing world- day of shooting, who would get on the weary outsiders with a noble and who sacrifice love plane. This uncertainty contributed streak. Born on Christmas Day for a higher purpose. to the emotional ambivalence of 1899 to a wealthy New York Bergman’s performance. family, he had a privileged, if Roger Ebert lonely, childhood. He served for the greater good. Clearly a in the US Navy during World Chicago Sun-Times, 1996 powerful message at the time of the War I, after which he struggled movie’s release, it has not lost any for a decade to establish his deeply poignant moment. While the of its power over the years. Indeed, acting career before finally audience longs for the romance to audiences today may be tempted to making a name for himself endure, it recognizes that nobility look back on a better, albeit fictional, playing gangsters and villains must win the day. world, in which personal gratification in Hollywood B-movies. His big appeared less likely to prevail over breakthrough came when he Enduring appeal the common cause, while the on- played the damaged hero in When Rick tells Ilsa, “You’re getting screen chemistry of the movie’s The Maltese Falcon. A string on that plane with Victor where you stars enhances the viewer’s of great movie roles followed, belong,” the audience vicariously pleasure at identifying with them. including To Have and Have shares his heroism and her self- Not, The Big Sleep, and Key denial—basking in the reflected However, the movie’s appeal Largo (1944), with his wife glory of renouncing romantic love does not lie in the passion and Lauren Bacall. The African selflessness of its leads alone. It has Queen won Bogart his only a strong cast of minor characters, Academy Award, for Best including a black-marketeer played Actor, in 1951. He appeared by Peter Lorre and a police chief by in more than 75 movies over Claude Rains. Both play morally a 30-year career and died, ambiguous roles in a corrupt world, at 57, in 1957. yet are ultimately redeemed along with cynical, hard-drinking Rick. ■ Key movies 1941 The Maltese Falcon 1944 To Have and Have Not 1946 The Big Sleep 1951 The African Queen
76 HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A HAM? TO BE OR NOT TO BE / 1942 IN CONTEXT I t’s astonishing The movie’s release in now to realize March 1942 was marred by GENRE that Ernst tragedy. Carole Lombard War comedy Lubitsch’s hilarious had died in a plane crash satire of the Nazis weeks earlier, while work DIRECTOR began production was in postproduction. Ernst Lubitsch in 1941, when the US had not yet actors remain actors, no WRITERS entered World matter what situation Melchior Lengyel, War II and was they’re in. But the story Edwin Justus Mayer still maintaining quickly became much neutrality. German- darker than that. STARS born Lubitsch set out Although it was Jack Benny, Carole to challenge that neutrality. made in Hollywood, the movie Lombard, Robert Stack Knowing the political risk he was is set in Warsaw, Poland, taking, he took himself out of the in 1939, just as Germany BEFORE studio system for the first time in is about to invade. The 1940 The Shop Around the his career and signed a deal with highly strung members Corner, Lubitsch’s hit romantic United Artists. This paid him less of a theater company— comedy, is also set in Europe than his usual fee but gave him led by Joseph Tura on the eve of World War II. artistic control. (Jack Benny) and the leading lady who is AFTER The story was unusual for also his wife, Maria 1943 After the disappointing Lubitsch in that it was not taken (Carole Lombard)— initial reception of To Be or from an existing source, but was are rehearsing an Not to Be, Lubitsch returns to developed by him with two anti-Nazi spoof by more conventional comedies trusted collaborators, Hungarian day and performing with Heaven Can Wait. screenwriter Melchior Lengyel, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet US playwright Edwin Justus Mayer. by night. When Maria 1983 To Be or Not to Be is becomes romantically remade, with husband-and- Actors’ vanity involved with a dashing wife comedy actors Mel The starting point was Lubitsch’s young admirer, pilot Brooks and Anne Bancroft memories of the vanity of actors Lieutenant Stanislav in the lead roles. during his years on the Berlin Sobinski (Robert stage, and his observation that
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 77 What else to watch: Trouble in Paradise (1932) ■ Ninotchka (1939) ■ The Shop Around the Corner (1940) ■ Heaven Can Wait (1943) ■ That Lady in Ermine (1948) Stack), she is drawn into a plan Ernst Lubitsch Director to track down a German spy who is about to endanger the Polish Born in Berlin Paradise (1935) he found ways to Resistance network. In a rapidly in 1892, Ernst smuggle risqué ideas past the escalating farce, the actors (many Lubitsch joined censor: a trick known as “the of them Jewish) use their skills at the Deutsches Lubitsch touch.” This paid off disguise to fool the invading Nazis. Theater in 1911. Two years later in comedies such as Ninotchka Dark comedy he made his screen debut in The (1939). He died in 1947 at 55. Ideal Wife, but by 1920 his focus This sounds as much like the shifted to directing. He left for Key movies premise of a dark, intricate spy the US in 1922 to direct Mary thriller as the light, romantic Pickford in the hit movie Rosita, 1940 The Shop Around comedies for which Lubitsch was and made a smooth transition the Corner known, which is exactly what the into sound. With Trouble in 1942 To Be or Not to Be director intended: a satire/comedy with dark intent. Lubitsch claimed made up my mind to make a bizarrely, a showbiz satire (the self- that he wanted to steer clear of picture with no attempt to relieve obsessed Tura consoles himself two traditional comedic formulas: anybody from anything at any with the thought that an audience “Drama with comedy relief and time.” The movie succeeds in being member who walks out during his comedy with dramatic relief. I had both an anti-Fascist tract and, Hamlet soliloquy may have been I don’t know, it’s not convincing. suffering from a heart attack). The war provides the sobering To me, he’s just a man with a counterpoint to the comedy: people die. There is a double edge little moustache. to the code message that Sobinski passes to Maria, unwittingly via a Stage manager / To Be or Not to Be double agent. “To be, or not to be,” it says, and as the Turas bravely lead their theater troupe in a deadly game of double bluff, it is clear that Lubitsch is using Hamlet’s famous line to question a complacent United States. To fight or not to fight, and let the Nazis get away with it? For Lubitsch, this was no question at all. ■ Jewish actor Bronski (Tom Dugan) and the other members of Tura’s cast fool the Germans by disguising themselves as Hitler and his entourage.
78 IT’S HOT IN HERE BY THE STOVE OSSESSIONE / 1943 IN CONTEXT O n its release in Italy, A movie that stinks of latrines. Luchino Visconti’s debut Gaetano Polverelli GENRE as director had to contend Film noir, romance with the disapproval of the Fascist Mussolini’s Culture Minister regime. It was beset by copyright DIRECTOR problems, too, yet his unauthorized Luchino Visconti adaptation of James M. Cain’s 1934 crime novel The Postman Always WRITERS Rings Twice has endured as well Luchino Visconti, Mario as the later Hollywood versions. Alicata, Guiseppe De Santis, Gianni Puccini A study of jealousy Neither of the protagonists is a (screenplay); James M. Although Visconti would become straightforward hero or heroine. The Cain (novel) known for the lush, baroque, and drifter Gino (Massimo Girotti) is melodramatic style of later movies filthy and broke, and the beautiful, STARS such as Senso (1954), Ossessione put-upon Giovanna (Clara Calamai), Clara Calamai, Massimo reflects his training as an assistant married to slovenly restaurant owner Girotti, Juan de Landa to French director Jean Renoir, who Giuseppe (Juan de Landa), is never first gave him Cain’s book. It has allowed the trappings of the femme BEFORE been heralded as the first of the fatale. In Visconti’s eyes, Giovanna 1935 Visconti’s movie career Italian neorealist movies, shot in is no temptress, and Gino no villain; begins as an assistant director the torrid flatlands of the Po delta it is the oppression of capitalism on Jean Renoir’s drama Toni. in order to capture the texture of that leads the working class astray. everyday life. It was this view that offended the AFTER Fascists, leading the censor to 1946 Tay Garnett’s The While Ossessione is nominally butcher the master copy. Happily, Postman Always Rings Twice a crime yarn, Visconti plays those Visconti kept a secret print. ■ is the first US adaptation of the elements down, creating a story novel. It stars Lana Turner and about desperation and jealousy. John Garfield. Both main characters are stuck: one in a marriage, another on the road. 1981 The second US version stars Jack Nicholson and What else to watch: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) ■ The Bicycle Jessica Lange. Thief (1948, pp.94–97) ■ The Leopard (1963) ■ Death in Venice (1971)
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 79 HOW SINGULARLY INNOCENT I LOOK THIS MORNING LAURA / 1944 IN CONTEXT A lthough it is synonymous McPherson’s investigation checks with film noir, Laura works all the requisite boxes for a GENRE best when viewed as a gumshoe movie—Laura’s wayward Film noir, romance twisted romance. Otto Preminger’s playboy beau, her two-faced aunt, movie plays out as a love triangle and her overprotective best friend— DIRECTOR within a murder mystery, as New but Preminger adds a strange, Otto Preminger York detective Mark McPherson dreamlike quality to the movie. (Dana Andrews) falls for the The femme-fatale formula is WRITERS title character (Gene Tierney), a slightly subverted: Tierney plays Jay Dratler, Samuel beautiful advertising executive Laura as an unwitting siren, Hoffenstein, Elizabeth apparently gunned down on her unaware of the spell she is casting. Reinhardt (screenplay); doorstep at the start. Vera Caspary (novel) The movie’s witty script still sparkles today, and it STARS Gene Tierney, Dana features a sumptuous Andrews, Clifton Webb original score by David Raksin, whose main BEFORE 1940 Tierney makes her theme became a screen debut in Fritz Lang’s jazz standard. ■ The Return of Frank James. Writer Waldo AFTER Lydecker (Clifton 1955 Preminger’s The Man Webb, center) With the Golden Arm deals and playboy with drug addiction, one of several controversial topics Shelby that he will tackle. Carpenter (Vincent Price) 1959 In Anatomy of a Murder, are two of the Preminger depicts rape more suspicious frankly than it had ever been shown in Hollywood movies. men in Laura’s life. What else to watch: Leave Her To Heaven (1945) ■ The Killers (1946) ■ Build My Gallows High (1947, p.332) ■ Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
80 A KICK IN THE REAR, IF WELL DELIVERED, IS A SURE LAUGH CHILDREN OF PARADISE / 1945 IN CONTEXT A mong the many great Shooting in Vichy France landmarks of French The ambition and scale of the GENRE cinema, Children of movie required a large cast Romantic drama Paradise (Les enfants du paradis), and production team. The cast made at the height of the German included Nazi collaborators, whom DIRECTOR occupation in 1943 and 1944, is the producers had been coerced Marcel Carné now seen as among the very into hiring. But what the Vichy greatest. With a compelling overseers didn’t know was that WRITER script by the poet Jacques Prévert, Carné had found a place for Jacques Prévert director Marcel Carné turned Resistance fighters among the a story set in 1830s Paris about 1,800 extras, using the movie as STARS four different men’s love for the daytime cover for their clandestine Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, enigmatic courtesan Garance into Pierre Brasseur, Marcel a profound and romantic drama. A film poem on the Herrand, Louis Salou nature and varieties of The movie itself is glorious. love—sacred and profane, BEFORE But what makes the achievement selfless and possessive. 1939 US historical romance of Carné and Prévert all the more Gone with the Wind is released. extraordinary is the degree of Pauline Kael difficulty they overcame even 1942 Set in 1485, The Night making it in occupied France. 5001 Nights at the Movies, 1982 Visitors is the first movie made Practically, materials for sets during World War II by Carné and costumes were almost and Prévert with Arletty. nonexistent: fruit and loaves of bread intended to be used on AFTER camera were eaten by half-starved 1946 Carné and Prévert crew members. Under the eye of reunite to make Gates of the the Nazis and the Vichy French Night, but it is a flop and they regime, every move was monitored. never work together again. And yet Carné’s invention—and independence—triumphed.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 81 What else to watch: Le jour se lève (1939) ■ Gone with the Wind (1939, p.62–63) ■ Le Colonel Chabert (1943) ■ Phantom of the Opera (1943) ■ An American in Paris (1951) ■ The Last Metro (1980) I’d spill torrents of blood to give you a river of diamonds. Pierre François Lacenaire / Children of Paradise The mime sequences were developed in its lowbrow theaters. At one sexual allure in her portrayal of by Jean-Louis Barrault (who plays point during the shoot, when Garance, entrancing the four men Baptiste, left), and his teacher, Étienne an Allied invasion of southern who are competing for her love. Decroux (who plays Baptiste’s father). France was expected, the production was forced to abandon Historical suitors Nice and move to Paris, only to Three of these suitors are based on find on their return that the real historical figures: Jean-Louis set had been ruined by storms. Barrault plays the mime artist It had to be completely rebuilt. Baptiste Deburau, who transformed the role of Pierrot into a poignant, Despite these problems, childlike character; Pierre Brasseur Carné and his team succeeded in plays the actor Frédérick Lemaître; creating a lavish and technically and Marcel Herrand the suave brilliant movie, and in coaxing criminal Pierre François Lacenaire. unforgettable performances from The fourth character, the cynical the cast. The star, Arletty, oozes aristocrat Édouard de Montray, ❯❯ heroism. The production team also included Jews in hiding, whose identities were kept secret—in particular designer Alexandre Trauner and composer Joseph Kosma. Trauner lived with Carné during filming under an assumed name, while Kosma’s work was credited to Maurice Thiriet, who arranged the music for orchestra. Boulevard du Crime The movie opened in liberated There were endless logistical Paris in 1945, and proved such a headaches assembling the success that it played for more than movie’s gigantic set, which a year. It was credited with helping Carné built in Nice, in southern to restore French national pride. France. It was 1,300 ft (400 m) long, and while building materials were scarce, he somehow recreated a street that resembled the famous Boulevard du Temple in Paris during the early 19th century. The street was nicknamed the Boulevard du Crime for the crime melodramas popular
82 CHILDREN OF PARADISE To be a producer, one must be a gambler, and the greatest French producers were gamblers. Marcel Carné like a stage, jostled through and caroused on by a vast and rowdy army of colorful figures, courtiers, and lowlifes alike. The movie opens with a theater curtain that parts as the camera glides down a Boulevard du Crime crowded with extras, and enters a carnival display where another curtain labeled “The Naked Truth” opens to reveal Garance bathing in a barrel of water, visible only from the shoulders up, and staring at her reflection in a mirror. played by Louis Salou, was inspired Rejected by Garance, Baptiste Elusive love by Charles Auguste, Duc de Morny, marries Nathalie, played by Maria Garance becomes involved with half brother of Napoleon III. Casares, an exiled Spanish Republican each of her suitors in turn: first associated with the Resistance. with Baptiste, the mime, who The world’s a stage saves her from a false charge of From the outset, the movie blurs balcony in the theater, known as theft; then with Frédérick, who the line between the stage and “paradise” (in Britain they call it steps in confidently after Baptiste real life. Everything is about the “the gods”), where the cheapest realizes that Garance can’t return theatrical show of life. Even the title seats in the house are situated. The his love; thirdly, with the criminal of the movie refers to the highest Boulevard du Crime itself seems Lacenaire; and finally, de Montray, who offers Garance protection Jealousy belongs to all if a woman when she is drawn unwittingly belongs to no one. into Lacenaire’s crimes. Frédérick Lamaître / Children of Paradise Garance is briefly intrigued by all four men, bestowing her affection on each of them in her own way, yet she remains utterly elusive, and cannot love them in the way that they dote upon her. In the first half of the story, as each receives some measure of attention from her, the
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 83 Cinema and poetry are the ends in tragedy as he dies on the Marcel Carné Director same thing, Prévert said. scaffold for killing de Montray. For Not always, alas. But it’s Garance, too, there is no happy Born in Paris in 1906, Marcel resolution: the man she finally sets Carné began his movie career surely true here. her heart upon – Baptiste – is as a critic, while working in Derek Malcolm ultimately out of her reach. his spare time as a cameraman on silent movies. By 1931, he The Guardian, 1999 Much of this drama unfolds was directing his own short before the eyes of the “children movies. In 1936, Carné teamed men are content, but, as the movie of paradise,” the working-class up with surrealist poet progresses, her hold over each of audience in the cheap seats. They Jacques Prévert for the first them changes their lives. are the most boisterous characters time on the movie Jenny. Over in the story—like the cinema the next decade, the pair made Ultimate disappointment audience, furthest from the stage a series of “poetic realist” In the movie’s second half, the yet also the most demanding. movies, casting a fatalistic eye suitors’ dissatisfaction breeds The paradise crowd cries out for over the lives of characters on resentment. Frédérick achieves his entertainment. They are eager to the margins of society, which dream of playing Othello since at see suffering and pain. As Baptiste’s established Carné as a star in last he understands the pain of father says, “A kick in the rear, if French cinema. jealousy. For Lacenaire, the story well delivered, is a sure laugh.” They want novelty, too. But “novelty,” he In the 1950s, Carné’s says, “is as old as the hills.”■ reputation was eclipsed as the younger generation of the Baptiste’s father plays for laughs French New Wave demanded from the “children of paradise,” even as a less artificial style. However, Baptiste reinvents the role of Pierrot he remained in high regard as a childlike, disappointed lover, whose among his fellow directors, pain tugs at the audience’s heartstrings. and François Truffaut once said that he “would give up all my movies to have directed Children of Paradise.” Carné continued to make movies into the 1970s. He died in 1996. Key movies 1938 Hôtel du Nord 1942 Night Visitors 1945 Children of Paradise 1946 Gates of the Night
84 CHILDREN BELIEVE WHAT WE TELL THEM LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE / 1946 IN CONTEXT F or some critics, Jean For almost 40 years before Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête he made La Belle et la Bête, GENRE (Beauty and the Beast) is Cocteau was a poet, and poetry French fantasy one of the most poetic movies ever had been the theme of his first, made. It is the story of a young girl 55-minute experimental movie in DIRECTOR (Josette Day) trapped in the palace 1930, The Blood of a Poet, about Jean Cocteau of a beastly creature (Jean Marais). the mythical poet Orpheus. Though repelled by the beast at Cocteau was eager to deny that WRITER first, the girl can see the goodness there was any symbolism in Jean Cocteau within him and falls in love with La Belle et la Bête, which was him. Cocteau tells the tale with his first full-length feature movie, STARS such serious honesty that it is although he also believed that Jean Marais, Josette Day elevated from bedtime story into poetry was an unconscious something morally profound. process. Contemporary US critic BEFORE Bosley Crowther was struck by the 1902 Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon is an early special- movie’s “gorgeous visual effects fantasy movie. metaphors.” At the same time, it is striking how plainly the 1930 The Blood of a Poet, story is told. Cocteau’s first movie, explores the power of visual metaphors. Supernatural simplicity Tellingly, the movie opens not 1933 King Kong portrays with the story, but with Cocteau a sympathetic relationship writing on a school blackboard. between a beast and a girl. He is making it clear that this is a story with a moral lesson, AFTER 1950 Orphée is the second of not a fantasy to be indulged Cocteau’s movies about the in. “Children believe what Greek legend of Orpheus. we tell them,” he writes. 1991 Disney’s Beauty and the On the movie’s release, Beast is one of the company’s critics praised its exquisite most successful movies. and imaginative costumes, designed by Christian Bérard.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 85 What else to watch: A Trip to the Moon (1902, pp.20–21) ■ King Kong (1933, p.49) ■ Vasilissa the Beautiful (1939) ■ The Red Shoes (1948, p.332) ■ The Night of the Hunter (1955, pp.118–21) The secret to it all is that Cocteau set out to make a movie that would stir adults; along the way he discovered the child’s imagination, too. David Thomson Have You Seen...?, 2008 The Beast’s palace is more like adult and more moving. With Fainting at the sight of the Beast, a stage set than a fantasy world. settings inspired by the engravings Beauty is carried to her bed chamber. The magic in the palace is surreal, of Gustave Doré and paintings of He tells her that he will ask her to marry rather than fantastic. Real hands Jan Vermeer, and exteriors shot at him every day that they are together. and arms emerge from walls and Château de la Roche Courbon and tables to hold candles and pour Raray in France, cinematographer himself credited Alekan for drinks, and caryatids have real Henri Alekan created a world achieving “a supernatural quality human faces that roll their eyes of Gothic enchantment. Cocteau within the limits of realism.” ■ and blow smoke. It is reminiscent of the art of Salvador Dalí, rather than the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm—unsettling, but also more Jean Cocteau Director Writer, artist, and director Jean not until 1946, at the age of 57, Cocteau was born in 1889, near that he made his first full-length Paris. He published his first book movie, La Belle et la Bête. Four of poetry when he was 19, which years later, he made a second gave him an entrée to the literary movie about Orpheus, Orphée. and artistic avant-garde in Paris. He combined movies, poetry, and theater until his death, in 1963. In 1917, Cocteau wrote Parade, the story for a ballet composed by Key movies Erik Satie for the Ballets Russes. His most famous novel was Les 1930 The Blood of a Poet Enfants Terribles (1929). Cocteau 1946 La Belle et la Bête directed his first short movie in 1950 Orphée 1930, about the mythical ancient 1962 The Testament of Orpheus Greek poet Orpheus, but it was
86 THIS IS THE UNIVERSE. BIG ISN’T IT? A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH / 1946 IN CONTEXT A Matter of Life and Death is amid the twinkling. “Big, isn’t it?” the story of a young British Eventually, we home in on a view GENRE bomber pilot, Peter Carter of Europe from space, then zoom Wartime fantasy (David Niven), whose aircraft is into the interior of the bomber. damaged over the English Channel, The camera pans to reveal Peter DIRECTORS leading him into an epic fight to live. sending a final radio message Michel Powell, before he must jump without a Emeric Pressburger In the memorable opening parachute. He jumps… and to sequence, the camera tracks across his and our surprise, wakes on WRITERS stars and distant galaxies. “This is a deserted beach. Michel Powell, the universe,” a narrator informs us Emeric Pressburger Peter fights for his life STARS after surviving the crash. The David Niven, Kim Hunter, movie plays with the possibility Roger Livesey, Raymond that heaven is a product of Massey, Marius Goring, Peter’s delirious mind. Katherine Byron BEFORE 1943 Powell and Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is based on a British comic-strip character. AFTER 1947 Black Narcissus is a psychological drama set in a convent in the Himalayas. 1960 Powell’s dark thriller Peeping Tom is savaged by the critics. His career never recovers.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 87 What else to watch: Between Two Worlds (1944) ■ It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, pp.88–93) ■ Black Narcissus (1947) ■ Heaven Can Wait (1978) It was released in the US as Stairway to Heaven, a reference to the escalator linking Earth to the afterlife. amphitheaters and Michael Powell and shiny spaces. It is, in Emeric Pressburger fact, all quite soulless. Directors But on Earth, life goes on in Technicolor. Michael Powell (above, right) was born in Kent, UK, in 1905. The angelic guide Conductor 71 Wartime message Emeric Pressburger (left) (Marius Goring), sent to bring him Originally developed was born in Hungary in 1902. to Heaven, has missed him, and during World War II, Pressburger worked in he has survived by mistake. After the British Ministry of Germany as a screenwriter meeting and falling in love with the Information encouraged before fleeing the Nazis in American radio operator June (Kim Powell and Pressburger to use the 1935 and moving to Britain, Hunter) he was speaking to just movie to promote Anglo-American where he began a productive before jumping, Peter appeals relations, frayed by the presence of collaboration with Powell. to the celestial authorities against US servicemen in the UK. As such, Their production company, the attempt to elevate him to “the the heavenly legal battle is less The Archers, made 24 movies, Other World.” The rest of the movie about the merits of Peter’s case sealing their reputations with shows Peter negotiating his appeal than easing transatlantic tensions. classics such as The Life and before a heavenly court. When the American prosecutor Death of Colonel Blimp, Black questions whether an Englishman Narcissus, and The Red Shoes. Special effects and a Boston girl could really ever Their last movie was the The transitions between Heaven be happy together, the answer wartime story Ill Met by and Earth inspire a host of may not surprise you—but it’s Moonlight (1957). In 1960, still a wonderfully human note Powell made the psychological dizzyingly inventive special in a deceptively strange movie, thriller Peeping Tom. Now effects. A ping-pong match brimming with imagination. ■ considered a masterpiece, it is frozen mid-action. A was vilified on its release and Life, empowered by love, all but ended Powell’s career. spilled table of books triumphs over everything, He made one more movie, Age rights itself. Can any of Powell seems to conclude. of Consent (1969), and died in this be real, or is Peter 1990. Pressburger had died imagining it all? In a J. G. Ballard two years earlier. reversal of expectations, The Guardian, 2005 Key movies heaven is portrayed not as a colorful paradise, 1943 The Life and Death but in subtle silvery of Colonel Blimp monochrome— 1947 Black Narcissus streamlined and 1948 The Red Shoes modernist, with bright
GEORGE REMEMBER NO MAN IS A FAILURE WHO HAS FRIENDS IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE / 1946
90 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE IN CONTEXT I ronically, the release of Frank George Bailey (James Stewart) woos Capra’s most enduring motion Mary (Donna Reed), just before tragedy GENRE picture was one of his greatest strikes: George’s father dies. He has to Fantasy drama disappointments. Despite being take over the family business, and amply praised by his peers, who never leaves Bedford Falls. DIRECTOR appreciated the movie’s craft, and Frank Capra winning five Oscar nominations best-loved movies of all time. plus a Golden Globe for its director, Today, It’s a Wonderful Life has WRITERS the movie flopped at the box become a festive favorite that seems Frances Goodrich, Albert office. Through the years, however, to embody the Christmas spirit. Hackett, Frank Capra popular perceptions of the movie changed, and over the course of his In the 1930s, Capra had been the STARS life Capra saw it become one of the voice of Hollywood. He refined the James Stewart, Donna screwball comedy genre with Reed, Lionel Barrymore BEFORE 1934 Frank Capra has his first major hit with the screwball comedy It Happened One Night. 1939 In Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, James Stewart plays a naive but honest man who takes a place in the US Senate. AFTER 1950 In Henry Koster’s Harvey, Stewart has a big hit playing a likeable man who speaks to an invisible human-sized rabbit. Minute by minute 00:51 01:20 01:44 George marries his At the end of the war, Clarence shows 00:04 sweetheart, Mary. They are with Harry due to return George what the world George saves his brother about to go on honeymoon, home, Uncle Billy accidentally would have been like Harry from drowning in an when there is a run on the gives Potter $8,000 on the if George had never icy lake. In the process, bank. George stays, and day the bank examiner is existed. This leads George suffers an ear saves the bank with his visiting. Potter keeps the George to beg to be infection that leaves him own money. money to ruin George. allowed to live again. partially deaf, and will later keep him out of the war. 00:00 00:20 00:40 01:00 01:20 01:40 02:00 02:10 00:25 01:10 01:36 02:02 After his father dies, Potter offers George a In a bar, George implores George runs home, George gives up his travel $20,000-a-year job. George God to help; then he drives to where he discovers plans to manage the family’s turns it down and returns the bridge, where he intends that the townspeople Bailey Building and Loan, home to hear from Mary to end his life. Clarence, his have made a collection the only way he can stop that she is pregnant. angel, saves him by jumping to save him. Harry Mr. Potter, a slum landlord, into the water first so that returns as they all taking over the business. George can rescue him. sing Auld Lang Syne.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 91 What else to watch: It Happened One Night (1934) ■ You Can’t Take It With You (1938) ■ Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) ■ The Philadelphia Story (1940) ■ Harvey (1950) ■ Vertigo (1958, pp.140–45) the peerless It Happened One Night Born George saves He creates He stops He has a (1934), starring Clark Gable and his brother Bailey Park, Mr. Gower, happy wife Claudette Colbert, but he became an affordable the pharmacist, and children best known for feel-good movies in from drowning housing project from poisoning which the common man triumphs over cynical corporations or corrupt a boy politicians—themes that resonated strongly with audiences during the Great Depression. A new mood Not born George’s Bailey Park is Mr. Gower kills Uncle Billy Had it been made 10 years earlier, brother drowns never built and the boy and is committed It’s a Wonderful Life might have been remains an old goes to jail to an insane another hit for Capra, but in 1946 he asylum and was out of step with the prevailing cemetery Mary is alone mood in the US. World War II had robbed the nation’s young of any After George makes the wish that he had sense of innocence, and audiences never been born, an angel, Clarence, shows him no longer had an appetite for pure what would happen if he had never existed escapism. Film noir was on the rise, in which morally ambiguous Capra’s masterstroke is to begin tender age of 200, has yet to earn detectives were little better than with a series of whispered prayers his wings. As Clarence studies the criminals they chased. for help, heard by heavenly beings George’s life in flashback, from who decide to intervene in the boyhood to adulthood, Capra paints Yet to the modern eye, It’s a life of one George Bailey (James a portrait of a loyal townsman who Wonderful Life seems surprisingly Stewart). They send an angel, but has sacrificed his dreams of travel dark, an attempted suicide being the only one available is Clarence and career in order to follow in his the central premise for a story in Odbody (Henry Travers) who, at the father’s footsteps, helping the local which a man discovers the true community and working at a small worth of his own life. bank in Bedford Falls, New York. ❯❯ James Stewart Actor James Stewart was born in 1908 third Oscar nomination. The I made mistakes in Indiana, PA. After a brief movie epitomized Stewart’s in drama. I thought drama stint on Broadway, he followed quiet, folksy charm, which was his old roommate Henry Fonda again brought to the fore in was when actors cried. to Hollywood. His movie career the 1950 hit Harvey. He also But drama is when the took off in 1938 when Frank made a number of Westerns, Capra cast him in the comedy and collaborated with Alfred audience cries. You Can’t Take It With You. The Hitchcock. He died in 1997. Frank Capra following year, the pair made Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Key movies which earned Stewart an Oscar nomination. He took time off 1938 You Can’t Take It With You to join the war effort, but his 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to popularity did not fade, and Washington his first postwar movie, It’s 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life A Wonderful Life, brought a 1958 Vertigo
92 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE In the process, George protects the While contemporary audiences may the townspeople’s money, he goes community from the greedy bank have been put off by the story’s to Potter—his lifelong enemy—to director and slum landlord, Henry divine intervention, Capra’s movie negotiate a loan. George has F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore). wasn’t so much about magic nothing but a life insurance policy realism as tragic realism: the angel to offer as collateral, and Potter Shocking decline doesn’t appear at the bridge until sneers at him: “You’re worth more George’s rapid transition from saint the movie’s final quarter. Another dead than alive.” Within this loaded to suicidal drunk is shocking and director might have focused more insult lies one of the movie’s main credible, perhaps rooted in Capra’s on the drama that makes George tenets: just as one life can make all own struggle with depression in his want to end his life, but Capra the difference, so can its absence. early twenties, when, as an Italian keeps it from us, not so that it immigrant, he found work difficult becomes a mystery but because, In despair, George drives to the to come by. Years of self-sacrifice when we do find out, it adds to the toll bridge to jump to his death. The and disappointment lie behind pathos of a man trying to do right. movie’s most famous moment George’s breakdown, and as a doesn’t occupy much of its running portrait of despair his downward On the brink time but it sticks in the memory for spiral is utterly compelling. Potter is the villain of the piece. its darkness. Wishing aloud that When George realizes that his he’d “never been born,” George is George and Uncle Billy (Thomas uncle Billy has mislaid $8,000 of taken by Clarence to a parallel Mitchell, second from right) celebrate reality, one in which George at the close of business on the day of never existed, and where the bank run. With $2 left, they are still in business.
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 93 The movie opened in 1946 and was a box-office flop. Postwar America was in the mood for morally ambiguous noir, not feel-good small-town sentimentality. Bedford Falls (now the movie may be a warning that we Frank Capra Director Pottersville) looks are not all in it together: some people, very different. “Each happily for those around them, are At the height of his career, man’s life touches so simply less selfish than others. Frank Capra was the biggest many other lives,” director in Hollywood, leading says Clarence, and Accidental classic the escapist assault on the this ultimately is the The movie’s later popularity involves Depression years with a slew movie’s message. another twist. Due to a legal error, of Oscar-winning comedies. it fell out of copyright in 1974, Having moved to Los Angeles Perceived as an optimistic movie, enabling it to be shown on TV with from Sicily at the age of five perhaps it can also be seen as one no repeat fees. The oversight has in 1903, he studied chemical since been corrected by the studio, engineering but struggled to that shows the world as a glass something George might have had find work. After bluffing his half empty rather than half full. a few things to say about. ■ way into a movie studio in San For Capra, George is one man Francisco, he landed work in who makes all the difference Hollywood, directing silent in people’s lives; he is not the one-reelers with comedy Everyman that we all are or mogul Hal Roach. Effortlessly could be. In that sense, moving into the sound age thanks to his engineering It is a story of being trapped, skills, Capra came into his of compromising, of watching own in the 1930s. After others move ahead and away, making propaganda movies in of becoming so filled with rage World War II, he saw his star that you verbally abuse your begin to wane; his best- known movie, It’s A Wonderful children, their teacher and Life, was not a commercial hit. your oppressively perfect wife. Increasingly disillusioned with Hollywood, he started making Wendell Jamieson educational movies on science in the 1950s. He died in 1991. The New York Times, 2008 Key movies 1934 It Happened One Night 1938 You Can’t Take It With You 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life
94 I MIND MY OWN BUSINESS I BOTHER NOBODY AND WHAT DO I GET? TROUBLE THE BICYCLE THIEF / 1948 IN CONTEXT Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle punch and grips so powerfully from Thief (Ladri di biciclette) first to last that it is regarded as one GENRE was made using untrained of the most important movies of the Italian neorealism actors and shot on location on the post-World War II era. It influenced dusty streets of Rome. It has almost generations of young filmmakers, DIRECTOR no plot, beyond that of the fruitless who see capturing real life, rather Vittorio De Sica search by an ordinary man and his than producing a neatly turned plot, son for a stolen bicycle. The movie’s as the object of their work. WRITER style contrasts sharply with the Cesare Zavattini; Luigi glossy Hollywood movies of the day, Cycle of hope Bartolini (novel) with their sophisticated scripts, Adapted for the screen by Cesare lavish sets, and slick acting. Yet the Zavattini from a novel by Luigi STARS movie packs such an emotional Bartolini, the movie focuses on Lamberto Maggiorani, hard-up father Antonio (Lamberto Enzo Staiola, Lianella While Hollywood may Maggiorani), who finds a job after a Carell, Vittorio Antonucci sometimes deal with these long period without work. To do the facts by analogy, the Italians job, he needs a bicycle, and must BEFORE deal with the facts, period. redeem his old bicycle from the pawn 1935 French filmmaker Jean shop, Antonio’s wife (Lianella Carell) Renoir pioneers a realist style Arthur Miller must pawn the family’s only sheets. using untrained actors in Toni. Despite this, husband and wife are The New York Times, 1950 overjoyed at the prospect of him 1943 Italian filmmaker Luchino earning at last. But while Antonio is Visconti directs Ossessione, an up a ladder on his first day at work, early Italian neorealist movie. sticking posters up around Rome, the bicycle is stolen by a young thief. AFTER 1959 François Truffaut’s Taking his young son Bruno gritty drama The 400 Blows (Enzo Staiola) with him, Antonio is shot on location in Paris. embarks on a desperate hunt to recover his bicycle. With the aid
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 95 What else to watch: The Kid (1921) ■ Rome, Open City (1945) ■ Shoeshine (1946) ■ Force of Evil (1948) ■ Pather Panchali (1955, pp.132–33) ■ Kes (1969, p.336) ■ Slumdog Millionaire (2008, pp.318–19) ■ The Kid with a Bike (2011, p.343) of friends, they scour the local Porta The thief’s family and friends sequences in cinema, as the Portese market, which is infamous furiously protest the culprit’s little boy holds hands with his for selling parts of broken bicycles, innocence, and a policeman admits humiliated father. until finally, through a mix of there is nothing that can be done determination and luck, Antonio A universal story spots the thief and pursues without proof. The brutally simple story of The him into a brothel. In desperation, Bicycle Thief recounts one man’s Antonio himself day of misfortune—one of countless steals a bike, but similar days occurring around the is quickly caught. world. Yet the realism of its narrow Only the kindness focus has a message that is of its owner, after universal—for those struggling to catching sight of make a livelihood in an unfair the distressed Bruno, world, a minor crime, such as the saves Antonio from theft of a bicycle, assumes the scale prison. The movie of a great tragedy. For some critics, closes with one of the it is not a political movie, because, most heart-rending like Chaplin’s City Lights (pp.38– 41), it offers no solutions—just the For Antonio, transformation of a victim into a his bicycle tragic hero. For others, this is what means he is makes it a true socialist movie, a part of the because it depicts the devastating world of work, consequences of leaving people to and a source sink or swim alone. Even before Antonio’s bicycle has been stolen, of pride for a beggar foreshadows his later, ❯❯ his son.
96 THE BICYCLE THIEF troubled, situation: “I mind my own You live and you suffer. business, I bother nobody,” he says, To hell with it. You want a pizza? “and what do I get? Trouble.” Toward realism Antonio Ricci / The Bicycle Thief The Bicycle Thief is often considered the high point of Italian neorealism. the white telephones seen in their attempted it in Modern Times In cinema, the neorealist movement gilded homes—movies such as I (1936) in Hollywood. But Italian was a reaction against the so-called Will Love You Always (T’amerò neorealists went further. They did white telephone Italian movies of the sempre, 1933), that, while not overt not simply focus on the poor; they 1930s, which depicted the frivolous tools of propaganda, portrayed an also wanted to make movies in a lives of the rich, characterized by image of prosperity that implicitly new way that would show the reality endorsed Italy’s Fascist regime. of people’s lives as they were lived. Bruno watches his father anxiously as he sits, despondent, on the roadside, It was not only in Italy that Neorealism took the director’s all hopes of a new life shattered. filmmakers tried to break from the camera away from the set and out milieu of high society. Chaplin onto location. The goal was to
A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 97 capture real life, and part of On its release in Italy, the movie Vittorio De Sica the brilliance of The Bicycle met with some hostility for its negative Director Thief’ cinematography in portrayal of the country. However, it particular is the sense it received great reviews around the rest Born in 1901 to a poor family, gives of a world that is of the world. Vittorio De Sica grew up in continuing beyond the Naples, Italy, working as an frame—by briefly of its black-and-white photography office boy to support his family. following incidents away as it follows Antonio and Bruno He got his first movie part at from the main characters, on their quest give an epic quality just 17. His good looks and or including real life going that engrosses the viewer in natural screen presence soon on in the background of a their lives. Directors such as turned him into a matinee idol. frame. To strip away the Ken Loach and Satyajit Ray have When he met writer Cesare artificiality of studio cited De Sica’s movie as the most Zavattini, De Sica became a movies, neorealist important influence on their serious director and a leading directors often cast careers. Such was its impact on exponent of Italian neorealist untrained actors, as its release that it was hard for movie. With Zavattini, he made Vittorio De Sica did in innovative filmmakers not to think Shoeshine (1946) and The The Bicycle Thief. Enzo in terms of real streets, snatches Bicycle Thief, both heart- Staiola, the boy who of life, and ordinary people as the breaking studies of postwar plays Bruno with such stuff of cinema. In the years that poverty in Italy that won tough and emotional followed, movements such as the special Oscars in years before directness, was spotted Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) in the foreign movie category was by the director in the France and the “kitchen sink” established. After the box- crowd watching him dramas of the UK marked a shift office disaster of relentlessly film while on location. in filmmaking toward this more bleak Umberto D. (1952), De naturalistic and candid approach. ■ Sica returned to lighter Lasting influence movies, such as a trilogy of Italian neorealism had already been romantic comedies Yesterday, championed by directors such as Today, and Tomorrow (1963), Luchino Visconti, with his 1943 and to acting. He died in 1974. masterpiece Ossessione (p.78). Yet what gives De Sica’s movie in Key movies particular its lasting power is the magnificence of its filmmaking. 1948 The Bicycle Thief The sweep, design, and movement 1952 Umberto D. 1963 Yesterday, Today, This is poverty’s authentic and Tomorrow sting: banal and horrible loss of dignity. Peter Bradshaw The Guardian, 2008
98 IT IS SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE A NEAT JOB OF KILLING PEOPLE WITH WHOM ONE IS NOT ON FRIENDLY TERMS KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS / 1949 IN CONTEXT K ind Hearts and Coronets that stand between him and the is one of a series of British D’Ascoyne fortune and dukedom. GENRE comedies that came out His murder spree begins with the Ealing comedy of the Ealing Studios in London arrogant young Ascoyne D’Ascoyne, between 1947 and 1957. Starring and ends with Lord Ascoyne. DIRECTOR Alec Guinness as all eight members Robert Hamer of the D’Ascoyne family, each of Comic killings whom falls victim to a gentleman Guinness is the star of the movie, and WRITERS murderer, the movie has the urbane each of his absurd characters is so Robert Hamer harm and light with characteristic sharply drawn that they are instantly with John Dighton of the Ealing style. The plot centers delineated, to great comic effect. But on the rise of Louis Mazzini (Dennis Guinness is matched by the movie’s STARS Price), who is determined to avenge “straight man,” Price. As Mazzini, he Alec Guinness, Dennis his mother for the shabby treatment is the epitome of manners, exhibiting Price, Joan Greenwood, she received at the hands of the such courtesy and aplomb that the Valerie Hobson D’Ascoyne family. One by one, he audience feels a sense of glee as he plots to remove all family members dispatches each D’Ascoyne in turn. BEFORE 1942 Went the Day Well? is Alec Guinness Actor one of the first successful movies made at Ealing Studios. Sir Alec Guinness was one of more serious movies, winning the great British actors of the an Oscar for his performance in 1947 It Always Rains on a last century, noted for his subtle The Bridge on the River Kwai. Sunday is the first of Robert gentlemanly manner. Born in Playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in Hamer’s three Ealing movies. 1914 in London, he started life the Star Wars movies made as an advertising copywriter, him hugely famous in the AFTER before taking up stage acting. 1980s. He died in 2000 at 86. 1951 The Lavender Hill Mob He became acclaimed for his features Alec Guinness as a Shakespearean roles, and by Key movies mousy clerk who becomes 1950 was a celebrated actor of a criminal mastermind. the London stage. He began his 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets screen career with a series of 1955 The Ladykillers 1957 Barnacle Bill is the last Ealing comedies before working 1957 Bridge on the River Kwai of the Ealing comedies. Alec with director David Lean on 1965 Doctor Zhivago Guinness plays multiple roles.
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