Beggars of Life (1928)

From its start, "Beggars of Life" is infused with an incredible energy. The opening sequence is silent narrative at its best and even now, months after I saw the film, it has stayed with me (I made some notes at the time which only now I am translating into a post). Within a minute or so of the credits, we see a young man, clearly a beggar, arriving at someone's house. He lusts after the man's breakfast. He asks if it's possible to have some but the man doesn't reply. He has been shot. A girl (Louise Brooks) comes in, dressed in man's clothes and in a frenetic flashback we learn what happened.

And this is only an appetiser for a film which oozes sex, fear and danger, often at the same time: at some stage, there is real danger that Louise Brooks' character will be gang raped. William Wellman's pace is frenetic and his direction assured. Having seen recently "Wings", his most celebrated silent film with its amazing aerial sequences, I found it lacking in comparison to "Beggars of Life".

The film is, (and I won't make it justice), a romance road movie, where the Boy and the Girl (they don't have names) have to go through ordeals before they earn the right to Love. In a sense it reminded me of the Borzage at his best, but whereas he usually has an ethereal aspect to the romance, Wellman (clearly a more pragmatic man) keeps them feet on the ground. All in all, this is one the best silent movies I have seen - and I can't recommend it enough.

Other than Louise Brooks, who was a revelation, as I never really "got" her in the couple of films of hers I saw,  the film also stars Richard Arlen (who Wellman also used in "Wings") and an amazing, unforgeattable Wallace Beery, as the bastard with a heart (or whatever is the masculine equivalent of the tart with a heart) . 

I think a word needs to go to the musicians who provided the score: Neil Brand and The Dodge Brothers (film critic Mark Kermode's band) did a fantastic job, creating a fantastic viewing experience. I wouldn't hesitate twice in hearing them providing music for another film. In an ideal world, a home video release of this would have been done long ago, and they would provide the music.

On Raymond Macherot (1924-2008)

Sometimes I discover things in a very convoluted way. This is a story of one such discovery, so bear with me if you can.

I grew up in a house full of comic books. They were my father’s, who started collecting Disney comics sometime in the 1950s or 1960s and has an enviable collection. He also has a decent sized collection of French-Belgium Bande Dessinées (BD). They were ideally stored in my room, so I grew up reading and re-reading them. Fast-forward to last year, when Fantagraphics released two volumes of Belgian BDs: “Gil Jourdan” and “Sibylline” (as “Gil Jordan” and “Sibyl-Anne”). I had been vaguely aware of both and half-tempted to get “Gil Jourdan” in French. But most of all, I was puzzled with the fact that a major US publisher in the area was investing in these two series, of which I knew next to nothing.

So, tempted, I bought “Gil Jourdan” and loved it (in the French editions, as I prefer to read in the original, but believe me, I still support Fantagraphics in other ways). These had always been available, however “Sibylline” and the other works by Raymond Macherot (the creator) were extremely hard to find. But my timing could have not been better if I had planned it.

Within in a year or so, collections of some of his famous characters became available, with another soon to be published; an exhibition opened in Brussels and I manage to get the cult classic “Chaminou et le Khrompire” (1964) for a very reasonable price on ebay.

And I fell in love. Well not with all of it, but enough. His worlds are (usually) full of deceptively cute anthropomorphic animals, and in his best work, under that kids-friendly surface of pretty little animals there is real threat – if you take the Sibylline stories Fantagraphics has available (the stories were produced in the second half of the 1960s), it is hard not to see in Anathème (Ratticus in the English translation) a Hitler parody, with occasional serious undertones. These same undertones were actually more pronounced in an earlier series, “Chlorophylle”, with a more vicious rat (Anthracite) as the antagonist. If you can read French, the collected "Sibylline" is available in five volumes as is the first volume an integral “Chlorophylle”(with the second coming out next month – and I can’t wait). If not, you might want to grab this the English one, with a second volume expected to be available next May.

Love is a Racket (1932)

While some early pre-codes can seem a bit disjointed or clearly emphasising sex to attract audiences, William Wellman’s “Love is a Racket” doesn’t fall into either trapping. Instead, there is a closely-knit narrative full of interesting, albeit not the nicest characters.

Jimmy Russell (Douglas Fairbanks Jr) is a reporter in love with an ambitious young woman, Mary (Frances Dee). When she confesses she has debts she can’t repay, and he tries to help, he seems to have arrived too late. A local gangster (Lyle Talbot) got there first…

One of things I absolutely loved is that there aren’t any real heroes here. Jimmy can do the honourable thing or not, but his choice is based on what’s most advantageous to him. The same goes for Lee Tracy’s character – although, if you have seen him once (no matter which film), he does his usually routine here: drunk, loud, expedite but loyal when pressed. Mary is really not as nice as she is pretty, and she easily stoops to use her charms to achieve what she wants out of men. And a special mention to Cecil Cunningham as Mary’s aunt, who clearly never heard of scruples. In fact, the closest to a nice character the film comes is Ann Dvorak’s Sally, who is an honorary “one of the guys” (and very much in love with Jimmy) but has not much to do (niceness doesn't pay?)...

The plotting is solid, with a few minor twists in the tale which really grabbed my attention, particularly one great scene involving a newspaper left behind which would have made Hitchcock proud. And (spoiler alert), if you take the comedy and the innuendos, the film covers some real menace: Talbot’s character wants Mary and will stop at nothing to get her (he starts with blackmail...).

I am surprised that this film is not better known. Wellman, is clearly in shape here and is celebrated enough to have had several of his films of the period released (Warner’s Forbidden Hollywood volume 3 includes only films of his).

The Constant Nymph (1943)

“The Constant Nymph” was a major production in 1943. It starred Joan Fontaine (who got an Oscar nomination for it), Charles Boyer and Alexis Smith, with Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall as support. Korngold wrote the score, and it was directed by Edmound Goulding, one of Warners’ directors responsible for a few women’s pictures of the period, including “Dark Victory” and “The Great Lie”.

Due to rights, the film lingered in the vaults of Warner Bros for about sixty years. This unavailability has, of course, raised its profile in some circles while ensuring the film faded out from the general public’s memory (“Letty Lynton”, a Joan Crawford 1932 film, is still to resurface). I am delighted it is finally available (it was screened in the US last year, and since made available by Warner Archives) and, of course, I was also looking forward to it – but it really did not live to my expectations (which weren’t much higher than those of, say, “The Gay Sisters”).

There are many ways to describe the story, but the simplest is to say it’s the obsession of one girl for a older composer who ends up marrying her cousin. This is a tale of obsession but packaged as a great love story. With some elements of "Lolita" added to the mix.

The problems of the film are the usual ones. They all start with a weak script. To me, obsession barely disguised as romantic heroism is a hard sell. Particularly when cliches are everywhere. From the idyllic childhood of a free spirit (ah, to be raised in Swiss Alps!), through the extreme unrealistic reaction of two teenage girls on the possibility of moving to London (and where did they learn English?) to the dreadful tear inducing end, complete with sacrifices from both women...

The second problem is the cast, or rather the mis-casting. Boyer was never good at anything, really (the closest I got to like a performance of his was “Madame de…”), so not much surprise there. He is also way too old for the part. He is supposed to be, as far as I could tell, a young composer. Funnily enough, someone who could have done really well with the part, was, I think, Ronald Reagan – who was about the right age, and I could see inspire such crush. As for Joan Fontaine, (who I usually like) let’s just say that she was not a teenager (in fact she was older than Alexis Smith). And it shows – the close-ups are of a woman in her mid-twenties, closing on thirty; not of a sixteen year old. But also, she’s all wrong – or directed all wrong. She’s unsubtle (you can tell how this going to end fairly early on), hysterical and manage to irritate the hell out of me. The remaining cast, except Alexis Smith (who is the best thing in it), play uninteresting versions of parts played elsewhere. 

But a lot of the blame has to go for the director, who clearly had no strength to keep his work (assignment?) together. He should have constrained Fontaine and try to keep the audience a bit more interested.

On the plus side, Korngold did a lovely score and Smith made the best out of the limitations of the bad script and managed to instill some heart into her performance. Although this is another problem: I was really rooting for her and I know I am not supposed to. 

On a footnote, spent a lot of the film trying to remember how many films I had seen the London house set in. From memory, "The Gay Sisters", "Now, Voyager" and I am pretty sure a couple of more Bette Davis films ("The Old Maid"?). I was trying to find out if it was still standing, but to no avail. 

The Apartment (1960)

“The Apartment” is perhaps the apex of Wilder’s career, and arguably the best moment of everyone else involved. Not that it all went downhill from there, at least not for me (I count myself among the fans of “One, Two, Three”, “Irma La Douce” and “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”). Having watched it again, and realising it hasn’t aged a bit, I am still in love with the film. I find it difficult to contain superlatives, so I am not even going to try.

A tale of modern urban life, where connections are becoming increasingly hard to establish, it focuses on a few characters around a New York big insurance company (an accountant, an elevator girl, and a few others).  It starts with a nod to King Vidor’s “The Crowd”, courtesy of set designer Alexander Trauner, and a narration of facts and figures, quickly establishing the dehumanisation of the workplace, just before we focus on CC Baxter, a slightly ambitious average Joe (played by Jack Lemmon). Nothing would distinguish him from the rest of the office except for two things: one, he is single (i.e. lives alone) and two, he rents a very well located apartment. Combined, these means it’s easy for he to loan his apartment to his philandering bosses.

Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s script is a masterclass in scriptwriting. It’s economical, character driven, true to character and funny and heartbreaking. An all-in-one example is the Christmas party sequence. In just a few shots, Lemmon’s character learns the about the mysterious identity of his boss’ lover. There’s no exposition, no big drama, just a few shots, a clue given earlier and you end with a character completely heartbroken yet unable to give away his feelings. Deservedly, it got them an Oscar for best original screenplay, which Wilder also complemented with a best director and best film – the last competitive Oscars he would get (he only got another nomination, for “The Fortune Cookie”’s script).

Of course it helps that his three lead actors (Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray) are absolutely astonishing. MacMurray plays slimmy, arrogant and self-assured with perfection: just look at the perfection of his twin scenes, with MacLaine and Lemmon, seducing one and the other (in different ways, with different goals), by telling one how much he loves her and that he will divorce his wife, and to the other, by playing macho and saying how MacLaine is just only another fling and he has no intention of divorcing his wife after all. One of the most reliable leading ladies’ leading men of the 1930s and 1940s, I always feel he was treated unfairly (e.g. not getting an Oscar nomination for this), something he contributed to by stating that only Wilder made him act. I disagree: not only was he always good fun in his Paramount years (well, at least as far as I have experienced) but in Sirk’s “There’s Always Tomorrow” he is as good as in here or in “Double Indemnity”.

Lemmon – Wilder’s Everyman – is also spot on. Funny and hurt, Full of joy and heartbroken. He handles with the same grace the Christmas sequence I mentioned above, and for instance, the spaghetti/tennis racked scene later on. Or his reaction to TV advertising – looking forward to an ever delayed showing of “Grand Hotel”.

But it is MacLaine that wins my heart. With her face alone she tells all the layers that Wilder doesn’t put into words – her barely hidden contempt when presented with the $100 bill; her confused apologies when she figures out that it’s Lemmon’s apartment; and in the final sequences, from the bar up to that brilliant line which ends the film (and Wilder and/or Diamond were so good at those) and leaves open most things to come. As for the Oscars, well, she put it best herself: "I thought I would win for The Apartment, but then Elizabeth Taylor had a tracheotomy".  

The supporting cast is also brilliant, particularly the quartet of executives who use the apartment, the doctor’s wife and the telephone girl. I am less convinced by the blond girl and the doctor – although he was the one secured a nomination for best supporting actor.

I think I also need to put a word here for two of my favourite technicians in the cinema ever: set designer Alexander Trauner and cinematographer Joseph LaShelle. Both had a long career. Both became Wilder regulars afterwards (particularly Trauner, with both working in “Irma La Douce” and “Kiss me Stupid”) although Trauner had previously designed the sets for “Witness for the Prossecution”. Both have a body of work that puts them at the height of their professions, and both got Oscar nominations for this. If Trauner’s amazing apartment got him a just reward (Lemmon’s apartment is one of the most realistic sets I have ever seen, from the TV to the Ella Fitzgerald LPs), LaShelle got passed over. In a perfect world they both would have won.

As Wilder put elsewhere, nobody’s perfect. And I have a couple of issues with the film. The neighbours’ reactions being one of them – how can they be completely oblivious to the fact that Lemmon isn’t really having all those women? Nosy as they are, they should have found that out long ago. Another is the timeline of events prior to the film: MacLaine only joined the company a few months before, but there is the hint in some of the dialogue that she’s been there for years. Surely there are plenty of hints on that front. But these little quibbles don’t distract from near perfection.

The Gay Sisters (1942)

When their mother dies in sinking of the “Lusitania” and their father soon follows while fighting in WWI, the three young Gaylord sisters are set to become rich heiresses. Alas, twenty odd years later, they still haven’t touched their inheritance and are living with few means, as the will has been contested several times since their father death. There is sibling rivalry, romantic entanglements and some skeletons hanging in the sisters' closets.

The three sisters are Barbara Stanwyck, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Nancy Coleman. The latter plays the goody good sister rather insipidly, but the other two are good. Stanwyck is a delight in her flashback (narration as well as acting) and Fitzgerald, as the man-eater sister, runs away with her scenes and almost the film. To support them, George Brent (acceptably bland) and Donald Crisp (not up to his best) are around, doing very little. Gig Young (changing his screen name to that of his character) also makes an appearance.

Directed by Irving Rapper, “The Gay Sisters” is hardly a classic. It is nevertheless entertaining, albeit it a slight camp way. There is some rhythm, and the plot is both slightly preposterous and amusing, thus the higher than usual camp value. The plot twists can be seen a mile ahead but still, there is something about it. I confess to have liked it – but would hardly feature it in a list of the great films of the 1940s although Rapper's other film of 1942 is a serious contender for that list: Bette Davis' "Now, Voyager".

From a plot construction point of view, and knowing nothing about inheritance laws, I was annoyed by the whole delay setting - it sounded completely preposterous. If the sisters were willing to make the allowance required, and their house (the main issue of contend) was not in their father's inheritance, why would the whole process drag for so long? The obvious answer is the house acted as MacGuffin - but that is from a scriptwriter's point of view, not the character's reality, and it did spoil a bit of the fun: but take it out and all crumbles.

The "almost was" casting is almost as interesting as the real one: the film was originally designed with Bette Davis in mind and Mary Astor was one of the possibilities for the Fitzgerald role, basically redoing their "The Great Lie" pairing. I wonder if it would have increased the camp factor. There almost was a sequel as well. That I think I would have enjoyed watching.

Celeste Holm (1917 - 2012)

Celeste Holm's presence in films is summarised by some random things from 1950 (of which the most famous is the unbearable "High Society") and her years in the late 1940s when she was a contract player at Fox. In five years (always as a supporting actress), she got an Oscar (for "Gentleman's Agreement"), two other nominations (one of which for "All About Eve") and appeared in films like "The Snake Pit". Then she went back to New York and work on stage and on TV.

Interestingly, her most delightful performance is one where she doesn't appear on screen - uncredited as the voice of Addie Ross, the husband stealer in "A Letter to Three Wives". Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Sothern had nothing on her.