Midnight Oil:Movies and More

Violence in Film: Queasy Stomachs

Well, I missed this week’s screening of “Goodfellas” on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies, second in the series on “Violence in the Movies”.

What can I say? I was in a kind of survival mode of my own what with the heat wave and the smog warnings and all. After several nights of partial insomnia, a bout of nasty stomach flu for me and the family followed by an even nastier upper respiratory tract infection, I just wasn’t up to it. “Do I need to subject myself to this?” I asked myself late on Saturday night - “No, not for love nor money.”

I did, however, watch “White Heat”. I could put up with the good old-fashioned gangster movie type of violence, at least for a couple of hours.

As was observed at one point during the Interviews, being a 1940s film, none of it was very real – the depiction of violence, that is. Sure, there were lots of “shoot-em up, blow’em up scenes” to go around. Cody Jarrett, played by James Cagney, comes off as a vicious, slightly psychotic old-style gangster. But, for all the victims who got blown away along the way in “White Heat”, I knew that none of it would bother my queasy stomach in the same way that just a couple of scenes of “Goodfellas” would.

Yes, you definitely got the picture that Jarrett was a fiendishly violent character – without exposing your mind to the full picture of what real-life violence actually involves. Scenes such as the one where Jarrett kicks a chair out from under the hapless Verna while she admires her mink coat in the mirror or where he sends one of his men back into the cabin to kill their badly injured comrade help to establish beyond doubt that the character of Cody Jarrett is a relentlessly violent individual with or without a gun in his hand.

No, you don’t get the full shock value that is attached to true-to-life violence in the movies. The stomach-churning, mind-scarring, emotion-numbing impact isn’t there in a film like “White Heat”. It is easier to watch a film like “White Heat” and come away with a sense, probably much like the original matinee audiences did, that you have been entertained for a couple of hours. The bad guy is bad, but he gets his just deserts in the end. Everyone walks away feeling that everything is basically okay with the world. That is just the way things worked in Hollywood in the 1940s if you wanted a hit movie.

Not that this was such a good thing. I don’t find that the 1940s recipe for a hit movie was somehow superior (a big star, James Cagney, a delicious dish, Virginia Mayo, a little pseudo-psychology, a good guy - bad guy story line and lots of gunplay). During the Interviews, Roger Corman refers to the escalation of the depiction of violence in films as a crass money making venture – “If you can get a hit movie for 22 buckets of blood and $5million, what’s to stop you from going for 50 buckets of blood (and a smaller budget??) the next time around?” Both approaches, it seems to me, lead to mindless entertainment and contribute to the problem of an unexamined life.

Personally, I don’t feel like I need the shock effect of guts galore as orchestrated by a scriptwriter or a director in order to come to terms with the extent of crime in society, the viciousness of violence, the existence of evil or the recognition of tragic consequences any of these things. I am already utterly and thoroughly convinced. I don’t like to dwell on such topics. Although I certainly try to avoid exposing my eyes and my mind to graphic depictions of such things unnecessarily, I don’t think that I fall into the category of therefore being “naï ve ”.

I can understand why people want to raise such issues through film. Of course I m not talking about the kind of “gratuitous violence” in film that was referred to a couple of paragraphs above. I am speaking of the “thoughtful, intentional use of violence” in film in order to make some kind of a statement. Supposedly, Martin Scorsese used violence in this way in “Goodfellas”

One of the difficulties of filmmaking, as with other modern art forms, is that, while it may be good for “raising issues” and “making statements”, it rarely seems capable of supplying any answers. It doesn’t give people any way of coming to terms with the issues raised. Films can show us certain things with painful accuracy - “People do horrendous things. A minority are so perverted as to like violence, death and suffering. Lots of us, if left to our own devices, are not above using violence to get what we want. Often enough, people who do bad things get away with it, at least in the short run.” Well, what are you supposed to do with all that?

I am afraid that I can’t agree with Mr. Jesse Wente, as recorded during the “Interviews”. Just because I understand something better, perhaps gaining some new insight into the intricacies of how violence works and where it comes from through watching movies, this does not mean that there will somehow be less violence off-screen. I find this to be a very na ïve point of view. (I am referring to the current popular point of view that education is the key to changing people and their behaviour.) I might possibly be able to justify on-screen violence as a means to explore the problem of violence, but to ascribe a transformative element to such depictions simply goes beyond what the vast majority of modern-day films can do and do do. They don’t have the equipment necessary.

Next week, June 18th, on SNATM on TVO: "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, directed by John Huston and "Angels with Dirty Faces" (1938) James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Great tough guy flicks.

Suggested Reading:

• IMDb's Message Boards - Look under 'Cagney’s greatest performance': “Cagney, gangster extraordinaire, singing and dancing? While I’ll never!”
• My article: Transformative On-screen Violence
• Crime and Punishment : A film with a different perspective

Violence in the movies: the good, the bad, and the ugly

A remark made by actor, Michael York during the interviews on Saturday Night at the Movies caught my attention. He talked about his views on American society and the attitude towards guns. Coming from England, he said that even after many years of living in the states, he still found the situation regarding firearms “incomprehensible” and “quite terrifying”.

Yes. True enough. What’s it like to live next door to a neighbour who routinely keeps guns around and regards it as a civil liberty to have access to the unrestricted use of dangerous firearms? It is not an uncommon Canadian point of view to regard our American neighbours to the south as “gun crazy” with all of the terrible social consequences that such insanity entails.

My real-life next door neighbour has a gun. He gets all of his permits and licenses lined up and goes hunting up North every fall. It’s an important tradition for my neighbour’s family. I can’t say that I really “get it” – it remains somewhat incomprehensible to me – but it’s just part of what my neighbours do in life.

Am I nervous about living next door to a gun? Not really in this case because I know my neighbour. He is a law-abiding, perfectly normal, well-balanced individual. But then, as long as the gun is present, there is always the possibility that it could fall into the hands of someone who was not quite so well-balanced and law-abiding – someone like Bonnie and Clyde for instance.

It is problematic. Just recently there was a case in the news where a police officer was reprimanded because she had not taken sufficient safeguards to ensure that her firearm was stored safely while she was off duty. The gun was stolen and apparently used in some kind of crime events. Things can and do go very wrong even when a generally responsible person who really does need a gun messes up.

The films “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Gun Crazy” depict what can happen when you have guns and sex and violence mixed in with a few fragile egos and the pressures of poverty. It’s a deadly mixture.

It seemed to me that “Bonnie and Clyde” was a good “A” picture and that “Gun Crazy” was a good “B” picture. I thought they were both respectable films as far as filmmaking goes as long as you remember that they were from different eras and that they fall into different ranking slots. I am not sure that using the term “enjoyable movie watching” is applicable here because who really “enjoys” watching human beings twitching in a macabre dance of death? Perhaps some sickos do, but those people are not sitting in my living room.

During the “Interviews”, a couple of different points of view were expressed about violence in the movies. Is it something that should be censored? Is there value to violence in film? Is the violence of modern filmmaking a mere reflection of society or does it serve to make the culture ever more violent? When does violence become gratuitous?

The violence portrayed in “Bonnie and Clyde” is somewhat shocking. It is also a part of the historical reality. The film may have taken certain liberties with historic facts in its rather sympathetic treatment of the Barrow gang’s adventures, but it is hard to get away from the fact that this whole episode of history was intensely violent. For this reason, it is hard to make the label of “gratuitous violence” stick.

In “Gun Crazy” there is more of an effort to explore the psychological dimensions of the evolution of violent criminal behaviour. Rather than relying on actual graphic depictions of violent acts for the effect, the impact of the reality of the violent acts is conveyed primarily through other means. While how well the effect is achieved in “Gun Crazy” might be debatable, you still clearly get the picture of an out-of-control escalation of violence.

One interesting attempt to convey this “out-of-control” feeling to the viewer is the bank robbery scene where the camera is actually riding around in the back of the car. Everything is done in a perfectly naturalistic fashion. You really are there in the back seat of the car watching in breathless suspense as the hold-up unfolds. I read somewhere that this scene was actually done on location, in one take, with no one except the principle actors being in the know that filming was taking place inside the bank. Some people on the street actually thought they were seeing a real bank robbery! (Maybe that’s taking naturalism a little too far!)

I found an interesting parallel in the scenes from both movies where there is a moment of hope of escape from the vicious cycle of violence. In “Bonnie and Clyde” it is Bonnie who dreams of “running away and starting over”. The couple engages in a moment of reverie. Bonnie’s hopes of escape are dashed when she realizes that in Clyde’s vision of the ideal future, “doing things differently” means planning bank heists with more finesse than they have been using. Bonnie realizes that there is no escape. She has hooked up with a lifelong criminal, no matter how charming and fun he can be at certain moments.

It is Bart who tries to escape in “Gun Crazy”. While on the run from their latest job holed up during a snowstorm, Bart pleads with Laurie to leave behind their life of crime. No sooner has a ray of hope of some kind of reformation emerged than that the dream turns nightmarish. Laurie rushes ahead with planning one last great hold-up in order to furnish the funds for their new life “in retirement”. Bart can’t resist her and is dragged inexorably back down into the maelstrom of destruction. Laurie makes some half-hearted attempts “at being good” during the film, but we are supposed to believe that she is the femme fatale, just plain bad through and through. While Peggy Cummins as Laurie Starr isn’t the actress that Faye Dunnaway is, she certainly is irresistibly gorgeous as the femme fatale.

No redemption is possible in either of these movies. The tempting illusion of freedom only heightens the pathos in the inevitable tragic ending. Bart’s childhood friends, the sheriff and the newspaperman, extend a hand of a non-violent surrender. Bart refuses to take the hand and condemns himself to a more immediate and dramatic end by throwing in his lot with Laurie.

In “Bonnie and Clyde” Bonnie tries to go home to her mother. At the end of the visit to the family farm, Mrs. Parker says in a semi-senile way, “You’d best keep runnin’, Clyde Barrow.” Bonnie appears to be dumbfounded. Perhaps it had never occurred to her before then that she could never go home once she started in on her crime spree. Bonnie keeps running headlong into destruction with Clyde Barrow because it seems like once she has started, there is no turning back.

Blanche finds herself in a somewhat similar predicament. Once she starts running with Buck Barrow, (although she did commence with a more honourable choice of marriage) there is no going back. Her lot has been cast. Although she sometimes tries to pass herself off as the helpless victim, Blanche is in there demanding her share of the take after a robbery. For whatever reason, she does not leave while she has the chance. And then it is too late. Still, Blanche clings to the idea of redemption. Buck is a good man because he has “paid his debt to society”, never mind the bad choices he makes in the present. Blanche cries, “If I could only do that one thing, it would be all right.” The one thing that she refers to is to go home to her Daddy. Blanche, as the daughter of a Baptist pastor, believes in the story of the Prodigal Son. Upon hearing that Blanche was a Baptist pastor’s daughter C.W. says in a strange and sad little remark, “We were Disciples of Christ.” The reference is meant to be a part of the décor, one supposes; the action takes place in the South in the 1930’s – nearly everyone went to church in those days.

Maybe C.W. and his dad were ‘Disciples of Christ’ at one point long ago, but they are so no longer. The declarative is in the past tense. There seems to be no possibility of peace, reconciliation or redemption. The hand that Blanche holds onto while blindfolded by her bandages in prison is a hand of false friendship. Blanche will be betrayed, just as surely as she unwittingly betrays C.W. Moss, just as surely as Moss Sr. purposely betrays Bonnie and Clyde in the bloody final shootout. Could it have ended any other way?

I am obligated to live at peace and in cordiality with my neighbour, no matter what I think of his hunting excursions. My neighbour is contravening no laws of the land. Meanwhile, I support legal reforms aimed at a sensible gun registration system, no matter what it costs in terms of dollars. As for the reformation of the human heart, well, that can be more difficult. Fortunately, outside of the world of film noir, miracles do happen.

Next week on SNAM: “White Heat” (1949) with James Cagney at 8pm and “Good Fellas” (1990) directed by Martin Scorcese. Gangsterism galore on TVO!

Suggested Reading:

• Triviography: “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Gun Crazy”
• My article on issues of violence in film: Gibson’s Gory Passion
• Starting over again: is it possible?

“The Right Stuff” had lots of the “right stuff” for pleasurable movie viewing for both my husband and I. That in itself is a grand accomplishment: heroism, comedy, recent historical commentary, adrenalin, macho men and machines for him and character development, good acting, sophisticated social commentary and irony for her. A good “his” and “her” movie. It’s not that easy when you go to try to find a good “date night” movie; at least it’s not that easy at our house.

Well, I’ll just skip over the “his” part and get down to the brass tacks on the stuff I like. I had not seen this film presented on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies or anywhere else. I found that there were more than enough suspense and laughs to go around. I found that some of it got funnier the second time around when I watched the first half of the movie on the second showing. I was also able to concentrate more on some of the more subtle aspects of the commentary when I saw the repeat performance.

At first, I asked my husband (who had seen the movie before) why we were looking at a film that starts in 1947 and is apparently about test pilots. “I thought this was about the space race and all that!” was my uninformed remark. My husband kindly explained to me that without the test pilots and the supersonic jets under development in 1947 there would have been no “space race”. “Oh,” said I. Well, that makes sense when you think about it.

There is the historical necessity of relating these two parallel plots, the evolution of the work of the test pilots on the Edwards Air Force Base and the Mercury Space Program. However, I found that the dramatic device being employed here by the filmmakers in creating the parallel to be of more interest.

By juxtaposing the two plots, both the similarities and the contrasts between the plots speak more loudly. At the beginning of the film, the test pilots do their work out in the back country of California in relative secrecy – “And nobody knew their names.” Chuck Yeager is played by Sam Shepherd as an unsung hero, a kind of taciturn old-fashioned cowboy who cares neither for fame nor for money in his wrangling with that old demon who lives in the sky. Yeager is a real American legend.

John Glenn, Alan Shepard and crew were a different type of All-American hero. They belonged to a different age, a modern era where everyone knew their names. The film explores the manufacturing of the All-American hero palatable for public consumption.

Yeager and his bunch remain aloof from the Washington image-makers and the press, giving them a long look over the top of a whiskey glass and a one-two knockout punch: “What you need here is a lab rabbit with a wire up his kazoo,” says Yeager. The Brotherhood of reclusive test pilots, the best of the best, are judged unsuitable for the job because they are too “unmanageable” for the handlers. The way the film plays it, Yeager has “the right stuff” in abundance; that elusive quality of bravery, perservance, self-control, true grit and some kind of “magic” that legends are made of all rolled into one. The “talent scouts” somehow can’t recognize the real thing because it doesn’t fit their “profile”. They therefore set about manufacturing heroes made in their own image.

After the circus personnel and the stunt car drivers don’t work out so well, NASA is left with monkies and a collection of Air Force and Navy aviators. Eventually the astronauts wise-up to the game and decide to use the power of the press to their own advantage, something which the chimps were apparently not able to do. As a group, the Mercury astronauts decide that they are going to take control and use the leverage of the press and their public image as a way of maintaining their dominence in the space program over the monkeys – “The public is expecting ‘Buck Rogers’ to step out of a space capsule and wave to them – not some chimp!” The way that NASA and Washington handle the whole Mercury Rocket dossier during the craziness of the space race is examined here with a rather critical view.

The power of the public image and the manufacturing of the All-American hero is a sword that cuts both ways, as we see from the unfortunate example of Gus Grissom. Grissom’s space flight goes flat when the capsule sinks unexpectedly after the porthole blows open. Betty Grissom carries on about how unfair life is. She will not get to hobnob with Jackie Kennedy. The second rate hotel with a fridge full of booze next to a Florida highway is insufficient compensation for her contributions as an air force wife. Gus stands shamefaced on the runway as the camera cuts away to the hurried version of the marching ban and award ceremony. There will be no ticker tape parade with the convertible. More than his own disappointment, Grisshom has to deal with the ire of his wife.

But Betty has a point. One of the most interesting things for me about the film is the exploration, not of space, but of the vast internal terrain of human emotion and behaviour in a pressurized environment. The character of Betty Grissom has conned herself into believing that she is taking unbelievable risks in being married to a test pilot, but that the Air Force will always be there for her in the end. The Air Force does not come through. Betty feels betrayed. It seems like a belief fundamental to her ability to cope with the stress of her life’s lot has been completely undermined by this betrayal. Instead of being grateful that her husband got out of there alive (at least this time around), all Betty can focus on is how she didn’t get what she expected.

Each of the wives of the primary characters is shown coping with the stress of the situation in a different way. They also have different ways of relating to their husbands.

Louise Shepard is shown as basking in the attention of the media in her moment of fame as the dutiful and idealized Navy wife. She is apparently oblivious to or willfully ignorent of her husband’s behind the scenes shenanigans. Perhaps she chooses to ignore the reality of the dangers and “hope for the best” until the tragedy is actually upon her.

Trudy Cooper walks out on Gordo as her solution to the ever-present risk of loss and tragedy. Gordo playfully holds up burnt-up hotdog at a backyard barbecue and all Trudy can see is a portent of the future of the “best test pilot she knows”-her husband’s charred remains in a body bag. She flees in horror.

Glennis Yeager has an interesting take on the predicament. She knows that she can’t change her husband; she doesn’t want to. Glennis is a fascinating character in the movie. I think we are meant to be fascinated with her just as Yeager himself is an enigmatic and endlessly fascinating figure. We see her engaged in a wildly romantic ride through the California desert with her husband followed by a scene where she is standing in tortured ambivalence leaning against the car during a test flight. You get the picture that Chuck is not the only daredevil in the family. Later on, after a successful flight, Glennis is out there carousing with the best of them. It seems like Mrs. Yeager’s strategy is one of “if you can’t beat’em, join’em”. Glennis makes a big speech near the end of the film where she basically tells Chuck that she doesn’t want him to take it easy and go into retirement. She understands that there is something in him that keeps him “chasing the demon”. It is all wonderfully romantic. And somehow, Chuck makes it through another test flight alive. I do wonder though where Mrs. Yeager’s philosophy would have taken her if Chuck had not made it - other than straight to a bottomless bottle of whiskey.

Ever-present in the film is that black-suited undertaker figure. In an early scene we see him ominously approaching the screened door of a newly made widow clutching her child to her breast, screaming, “No!” The undertaker sings on two occasions a hymn that I remember as being dedicated to lost seafarers and not to airmen. The occasion, is of course, a test pilot’s funeral. Apparently there is ample work for the black-suited figure around the air base. You notice that no one but the undertaker sings the hymn. It is a mere formality – an added touch that comes with the platinum package at the funeral home. I’m not sure that anyone, the scriptwriters included, paid much attention to what the hymn actually says.

And then there is John Glenn’s wife, Annie. We first hear of Annie during John Glenn’s T.V. appearance on a game show. Glenn speaks in glowing terms of his history with his wife. It seems all too good to be true. In general, John Glenn as portrayed by Ed Harris is some kind of overgrown boy scout spouting apple pie platitudes for the public. We would like to write this guy off, Mr. Clean Marine as the other Mercury Men call him. The trouble is that as the film unfolds, you get the picture that this isn’t all just an act for the camera. This really is the way John Glenn is on camera and off. I don’t know much about the real John Glenn, but I do know that several reviewers thought that Ed Harris’ performance in this role was very accurate and true to life.

There is a touching scene of a private moment between Annie and John Glenn. It is then that you come to realize that Annie is not a stuck up snob as the astronaut wives first thought.  Nor is she some kind of a beauty queen as you have been led to believe by Glenn’s initial comments about her. Annie appears to be a very ordinary woman with a marked handicap in her stuttering. John is very patient with her and supportive. Glenn laughingly asks his wife is she perceives him as as “Dudley Do-Right” like everyone else. It is this scene that makes it believable that he truly is 100% behind his wife. When John Glenn makes the comment for the cameras about Mercury Rockets, the American flag, apple pie and his wife being 100% behind him, you want to say, “Yeah, right. And what other choice does she have this being the early 1960s and you being an up-and-coming presidential hopeful?” You might be tempted to remain somewhat sceptical about John Glenn’s authenticity.

Then, in the climactic scene where Glenn gets on the phone with Vice President Johnson’s man, you see love in action. Glenn does not succumb to pressure from the White House or anywhere else. He defends his wife. John Glenn is going to back up his wife 100% because that is the kind of relationship that they have in private and in public. Johnson is left to have a hissy fit in the back of his limousine all because of a mere housewife who won’t co-operate in front of the cameras for the good of the nation.

In real life, Annie Glenn apparently overcame a severe stuttering problem. John Glenn, although he did not make it as President of the United States, did make it into space once again in later life. It seems like both of them overcame tremendous odds in different spheres and remained mutually supportive of each other in the long haul in spite of the challenges. Maybe it had something to do with that seemingly silling vaunting about a wife who is 100% behind her husband and vice versa.

I don’t know. My husband hardly has a one in four chance of coming home from work one day in a body bag. I don’t live with that unique kind of stress. But I think that Annie Glenn’s philosophy had something to do with being able to survive alive and still have a marriage that worked.

Tune in next week, June 4th, on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies for a take on some all-time messed up marrieds "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty at 8pm and "Gun Crazy" (1949) at 10:10pm EST.

Suggested Reading :

• So what was that hymn? (the Navy version) Beware the organ blast from your speakers.
• And about that corny “behind you 100%”marriage stuff?
• Say what about marriage?!
• IMDb trivia on “The Right Stuff”

Galmour and Glitz

I liked both movies, neither of which I had seen before. I must say that the reputation of these films did precede them. These are exactly the kind of films that I like to watch and that my husband can’t stand. He wonders what I see in them. I sometimes wonder what he likes his action flicks/spy thrillers besides the adrenalin rush. Okay, okay. I sometimes like them too.

I have a terrible confession to make. I just had to sneak out and one point and tune into the “Phantom Menace” playing simultaneously on the CBC. This was partly because I wanted to check on my VHS taping quality and partly because I was falling asleep watching “Dinner at Eight” on TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies. It wasn’t so much that I was bored as that I was tired. I think I would have been more bored by the Star Wars prequel – wooden acting, computer generated set designs, special effects that underwhelm you every other scene. Give me some of that good old-fashioned made on the back lot in Hollywood magic!

Both of these films were classic displays of some of the best offerings of the studio system in the 1930s: star power, ensemble cast, good acting, lots of clever dialogue, big elaborate sets – at least the one in the Grand Hotel is impressive when you remember that this film was made in the early 30s.

I guess that I am endlessly fascinated by the interesting array of human personality and the human condition that filmmaking can convey. The “shoot ‘em up, blow ‘em up” special effects stuff just doesn’t grab my attention the same way. It’s over in a second and, once my senses have recovered, my mind has nothing to ponder and no one to relate to.

The whole premise of both “Dinner at Eight” and of “Grand Hotel” is to offer up a parade of interesting characters to amuse and delight, to surface our disdain and our compassion. And it is all done in a very memorable way.

Everyone, it seems, is conniving and scheming at some level from the chain-smoking maid (Hilda Vaughan) committing blackmail to the ill-fated Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore) in trying to salvage his failing shipping business while covering up his serious heart condition. Everyone is trying to get ahead in their own way – or at least stay afloat.

It makes for a queer mixture of tragedy and comedy. There are scenes that are pure and uproarious comedy. There is also unavoidable pathos.  You can’t get around the dark bits, such as the suicide of Larry Renault. When Marie Dressler as Carlotta makes her statement to the newly berieved Paula about how death is so terrifyingly final, no one is laughing. The big dark eyes and the slightly exaggerated mannerisms that remind one of the silent film era might provoke laughter in other circumstances, but not here. Carlotta, for once in this film, is in dead earnest: there is no coming back from beyond the grave. But Carlotta, after peering over the edge of the gravesite, pulls herself together along with the other dinner guests and gets on with the business of the day: scratching and clawing her way in her memorably comedic fashion through the rest of the days allotted to her. In response to the Jean Harlow character’s comment about a book Kitty had read that predicted that mechanization would change every profession known to man, Carlotta tosses off an immortal comedic come-back line: “You needn’t ever worry about that, dear.”

People who came to watch this film originally were living through the Dirty Thirties. I can imagine that they were fascinated by  the Hollywood version of the lives of the rich and glamourous coming on hard times. There is lots of drama in it. However, when Mrs. Jordan near the end of the film receives the shocking news about the true state of affairs with her husband’s health, her instantaneous reformation and tearful pledge to change the future through “economizing” seem a bit hollow.  After all, what does a Millicent Jordan know about hard times and real suffering? To Mrs. Jordan, “economizing” might mean doing without the crabmeat and inviting a few less guests to her next dinner party.

“Grand Hotel”, while sharing something of the same MGM winning formula and even some of the same cast members, is different in that there are clear and fully developed representatives of the “ordinary man” in amongst the rich and famous inhabitants of the posh Berlin hotel. Flaemmchen and Kringelein played by Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore, are people repressed and abused by the powers of their day. But the representatives of the ruling class, the industrialist, Preysing (Wallace Beery), the blue-blood Baron fallen on hard times (John Barrymore), the all-observant intellectual, Dr. Otternschlag, and the neurotic artiste, Russian ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) are utterly human. Although they are very flawed characters, they are not monsters. It seems that for the most part they are no better or no worse than the stenographer and the accountant; it is just that the circumstances of their lives are much less privileged. They feel the misfortunes and injustices of life more and more often because they do not have the comforting shield of money to insulate them from such realities. The rich are in some ways like the high-strung ballerina whose many “handlers” literally keep Grusinskaya out of touch with reality in order to cajole another performance out of her.

Let me give you a wake up call about the world of dance (not that I have ever been a ballerina let alone a principal dancer). I don’t think that a Grusinskaya would ever be able to make it as dancer in the real world in such a state of perpetual emotional instability. Dance takes discipline and a state of internal emotional strength and stability. The old dancer’s saying about discipline and performance goes: “If I am not in rehearsal for one day for any reason whatsoever, I know it. If I am not at the barre practicing, after two days, the ballet master knows it. If I skip ballet class for three days, the whole world knows it.” But, a manic-depressive ballerina does make for high drama. Anyways . . .

In the end, by a twist of fate, the two representatives of the working poor, Flaemmchen and Kringelein, make off with a pile of cash and a new lease on life. Everyone cheers. They deserve some happiness in life after all, don’t they? And money makes for happiness, doesn’t it?

Well, maybe if you spend enough time living at MGM’s Grand Hotel you think it does.

Next week’s feature on TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies, 8pm EST:The Right Stuff (1983) Sam Shepard and Ed Harris.

Everyday Heroes

I saw Marty again on TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies. I liked it just as much as I did the first time I saw it many years ago. Ernest Bornine, in his Oscar-winning title role as Marty is such an affable fellow after all.

Before I sat down to watch the film I wondered if it would be as good as I remembered it being. I was not disappointed.

The characters and character development was warm and real even if most of the people in the movie were  sort of stereotyped: the Italian mama (Esther Minciotti as Mrs. Piletti), the tiresome mother-in-law (Augusta Ciolli as Aunt Catherine), the quarrelsome couple striving for independence and self-definition (Karen Steele and Jerry Parris as Virginia and Tommy), the “good time Charlie” (Frank Sutton as Ralph) and the perpetually immature and self-absorbed drinking buddy (Joe Mantell as Angie).

Marty himself is such a plain talking fellow and Ernest Bognine is such a wonderful actor in this role that you connect with him right off the bat. In the opening scenes Marty is lectured by well-meaning but totally insensitive female customers in the butcher shop. The stinging speeches about not yet being married as well as Marty’s mute reaction to them set the tone for the rest of the film. I noticed much more this time around the structure of the film, how various lines were reframed and purposely repeated by Paddy Chayefsky, the screenplay writer, in order to move the action forward. An example of this would be where in the closing scene of the film instead of listening acquiescently to his customers’ nauseating harping about his singlehood (“You oughta be ashamed of yourself!”), Marty energetically repeats the same line from the opening scene to his friend, Angie, as he slams shut the door of the phone booth and calls up Clara in order to ask her out on another date. Self-determination wins the day. I noticed much more on this viewing the “stage play feel” of the film.

Even though Marty is very well anchored in a particular place, in a particular time, it seems to me that one of the reasons why the film remains so charming is that there is an “Everyman” kind of quality about the character of Marty. He is such an ordinary guy. He is so Italian Catholic. He is so post-World War II American. Scenes of the family preparing for mass are as unaffected and spontaneous as Marty’s “out of the blue” query to Clara after their rambling late night conversation: “Are you Catholic?” It was important, let’s say foundational, for Marty to assure himself that he and Clara shared a value system and a perspective on life encompassed by that question. It was just a totally normal thing for Marty to ask in his day and age.

Such a question today would be jolting if not revolting for a modern film audience. At best one could try to pull it off as a joke. But Marty is perfectly serious, perfectly honest, perfectly natural, just as he is in the rest of the film. My, but times have changed.

On the other hand, one can observe that some things have changed for the better. It is jolting and revolting to me to see and hear the language used in the film to describe women. There is what becomes a comical line in the mouth of the Mrs. Piletti, when the Stardust Ballroom is described as being “loaded with tomatoes”. Women are objectified in a way that was so typical and socially acceptable at that time. Clara’s “blind date” at the Stardust Ballroom is seen abusing a cigarette machine. He is incensed over the fact that he “expected something better than the dog he got” because after all he only got one Saturday night off every two weeks. He expected his money’s worth from Clara just like he expected his money’s worth from the cigarette machine. I am afraid that the general standard of the day was that this guy was justified in treating both the girl that he liked and the one he wanted to ditch no better than the malfunctioning cigarette machine, just because he “paid for something”.

Mickey Spillane “sure knows how to handle women” in his crime novels according to the bachelors’ worldly wisdom freely offered to our hero. Fortunately, Marty turns his gaze from such a “lofty model” on how to handle women and remembers a more humble, a more real and a more tender prototype for social behaviour: the interaction between his own mother and father. Marty treats Clara differently than the other men in the room because Marty is different. Marty starts the dialogue between the sexes by valuing Clara for who she is as a person, not for what she can give him. As a bonus, Clara’s interaction with him makes Marty feel wonderful about himself and about life.

Although Clara does show signs of being a liberated modern Miss, (she has completed university, earns her own living and thinks that Mama should not be so entirely dependent upon her children for her happiness) you don’t get the picture that the fundamental respect that Marty shows her is based upon lately learned lessons from the Women’s Liberation Movement. It goes back farther than that. It goes back to seeing his mama and his papa treat each other with old fashioned tenderness and respect throughout a lifetime in the everyday moments around the Piletti home.

Although this film has a definite sense of time and place, it wears well because it keeps timeless values in the forefront.

And as for “The Americanization of Emily” – well, you go from a couple of people who are not particularly beautiful on the outside but have something going for them on the inside (Marty and Clara) to two people who have great “movie star looks” but are more than a little bit messed up on the inside (Lt. Comdr. Charlie Madison and Emily Barham)

Whereas I would characterize Marty as a surprisingly good film, my experience of watching The Americanization of Emily was a sense of being off kilter somehow. There are some surprises woven into the action of the plot, to be sure, but that does not really account for my sense of being off-balance. Ridiculous twists and turns in plot evolution are entirely acceptable and expected in such comic films.

There is the fact that it is a 1960’s film in black and white. That is somewhat fitting as the film is about propaganda generated in endless black and white newsreels during the Second World War. Perhaps the choice of black and white adds to the fact that the genre of the film has been described as a black satire. Still, you kind of expect to see Julie Andrews and James Garner and others of their generation filmed in glorious technicolour.

There is the fact that this is an anti-war movie filmed at the beginning of Vietnam and yet it chooses as its subject matter a very popular war, WWII. You feel like some of the tone and vehemence of the central speeches of the film are more compatible with what was going on during the Vietnam War rather than with World War II. Is this just a projection back in time of a sentiment that was not really prevalent in the society of the day? Surely during WWII there were craven cowards and self-serving stewards such as the “dog-robber” Charlie Madison, just as there have been in all wars. But it seems to me that a film such as this one could only have been made 20 years after that war. I don’t think that the American public would have accepted such a stark evaluation of things at the time of the war or that Hollywood would have dared to say such things about that war. Somehow there seems to be something inauthentic about going back and saying it after the fact.

It is not that I don’t think that the content of the anti-war speeches of Paddy Chayefsky in this film are not legitimate, brilliant, and at times stunningly funny. They are great speeches. The scene where Madison unceremoniously dismantles Mrs. Barham’s delusions about life and the war is wonderful. It is just that I don’t quite think that it works for the speeches to be in the mouths of the characters. The characters aren’t real people anymore – their lives and their actions in the film become an excuse to voice anti-war rhetoric.

But perhaps that is how it is all how it is supposed to be. The film catches you off-balance. It gives you something that you don’t quite expect and doesn’t give you what you have come to expect. Yes, I think that I can say that it is an interesting film.

It is interesting for very different reasons than Marty. While Marty has something worthwhile to say about the human condition and therefore will remain somewhat timeless in its relevance, I think that the interest factor in The Americanization of Emily may be different as time goes by. Perhaps people will say, “Here is an interesting piece about how attitudes about war changed in America between the end of WWII and the beginning of Vietnam .”

Both films are worth watching, but I think to be honest I am more likely to be in the mood to watch Marty again than The Americanization of Emily.

Check out some really old films on TVO on Saturday, May 21^st: Dinner at Eight (1933) Gene Harlow and Marie Dressler and Grand Hotel (1932) Greta Garbo and John Barrymore