Monday, December 12, 2011
Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night…
By Edward Copeland
…may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. That little poem of folklore gets repeated several times in 1941's The Wolf Man which, like all the other classic Universal horror films of the 1930s and '40s, I saw for the first time at a young age, before I'd even started school. That rhyme of warning is so short and simple, I memorized it early and never forgot it — or much of the movie that contains it either. The Wolf Man was a latecomer to Universal's monster mash, premiering 70 years ago today, a full decade after Dracula and Frankenstein began the trend, The Mummy joined their ranks and many sequels popped up in the interim. However, the 10-year wait proved beneficial for The Wolf Man as a movie, gaining it better production values, a cast with higher marquee value and what may be the most literate and philosophical screenplay of any of the Universal horror films. Written by Curt Siodmak, what separates Larry Talbot's werewolf from the other monsters within the Universal fold is the story's more psychological approach. Certainly we feel sympathy for Frankenstein's monster, but he's not evolved enough to feel sorry for himself and he can't wish, as Talbot does in later installments, for his own death. As a werewolf, he may become a predator when his transformation takes place, but Talbot takes no joy from it the way Count Dracula does.
Until I looked at Siodmak's prolific credits on IMDb, I didn't realize that the 2010 film The Wolfman starring Benicio Del Toro was an actual remake of the 1941 film. Del Toro played Lon Chaney Jr.'s role of Lawrence Talbot and Anthony Hopkins took on Claude Rains' part as his father Sir John Talbot. Having not seen the 2010 film, I have no idea how closely it follows Siodmak's screenplay, though I'm certain it improves on the makeup effects. Admittedly, the makeup by Jack Pierce, while impressive on its own, doesn't show us the facial transformation as I remembered. In my mind, I always recalled the still shots that showed Chaney's face changing into that of a werewolf, but I must have been confusing my Talbots with later outings which did show that, as you can see in this YouTube clip that compares the metamorphosis in The Wolf Man which only showed Talbot's feet changing and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943 which showed his face undergoing the transformation (though the quality isn't great). Hopefully, this will stay. Three times I've placed clips that have gone away later and this one is the same one that was there before.
In the 1941 original, we don't see his face until later when it's complete and in reverse when he "dies." In a documentary on the werewolf legend in film on the two-disc special edition DVD, Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (who won the first Oscar in that category for An American Werewolf in London) heaps praise on Pierce as a trendsetter who doesn't get the credit he deserves largely because of his reluctance to use rubber pieces in his designs, even though they had become standard practice by the time of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. As a result, Pierce eventually lost his job in the later films though his essential look for The Wolf Man remained.
Now, without meaning to, I've leaped way ahead of myself, failing to give my readers even a minimal amount of background detailing the story of The Wolf Man and how the son of a wealthy Welsh family returns home and ends up falling victim to a werewolf's curse. The Wolf Man was directed by George Waggner, who earlier in 1941 directed Lon Chaney Jr., in his first Universal horror film, Man Made Monster (also known as Atomic Monster). Waggner's other best known features probably were 1949's The Fighting Kentuckian and 1951's Operation Pacific, both starring John Wayne. Waggner's real niche turned out to be television where he directed multiple episodes of series such as Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman. The Wolf Man opens on a row of leather-bound encyclopedias and hands pull out the volume for the letter L and flip pages until they find the entry for lycanthropy that reads:
LYCANTHROPY (Werewolfism). A disease of the mind in which human beings imagine they are wolf-men. According to an old LEGEND which persists in certain localities, the victims actually assume the physical characteristics of the animal. There is a small village near TALBOT CASTLE which still claims to have had gruesome experiences with this supernatural creature. The sign of the Werewolf is a five-pointed star, a pentagram, enclosing…
From there, we see Lawrence "Larry" Talbot being driven by a chauffeur (Eric Chilton) to his family's Welsh castle after that 18-year exile in the United States. His return has been sparked because of his older brother John's death in a hunting accident. The chauffeur soon points and says, "Talbot Castle, Mr. Larry." The gargantuan Welsh estate does provide a stunning sight. The car pulls up in front and his father, Sir John Talbot (the always-welcome Claude Rains) comes out to welcome him home. Larry steps inside his family's ancestral home again and comments that it looks the same, though his father comments that they've added some modern conveniences. Larry also
receives a surprise visitor — old friend Paul Montford (Ralph Bellamy, taking a rare break from the usual third wheel in screwball comedies), who just wanted to say hello before getting back to his job as chief constable of the district. When he departs, Larry expresses surprise to his father than Montford became a cop, a term his father isn't familiar with, so Larry says policeman, but Sir John says Montford was a captain, but he's retired. Strangely, the opening credits identify his character as Colonel Montford. It isn't clear what either Sir John or Larry Talbot do for a living, though it's clear that the family's wealth has been handed down and Sir John is a very educated man who conducts research in a variety of areas. For not having seen each other in nearly two decades, the reunion lacks tension though a definite chill
continues between the two men, especially from Sir John's direction. When Larry crosses into the area of the main floor in front of the hearth, the large portrait of his late older brother John (who bears a striking resemblance to Larry) that hangs above it immediately draws his eyes and he offers his sympathies to his father. "Your brother's death was a blow to all of us.…You know, Larry, there's developed what amounts to a tradition about the Talbot sons. The elder, the next in line in succession and so forth, is considered in everything. The younger frequently resents the position in which he's found and leaves home, just as you did," his father opines while stoking the fire. "Yes, but Father, I'm here now," Larry reminds him. "Fortunately, but isn't it a sad commentary on our relationship that it took a hunting accident and your brother's death to bring you?" Sir John asks rhetorically. Rains raises the level of every film he ever made and to have him here lifts The Wolf Man to a higher plane immediately. Then again, Rains' choice of roles always were eclectic and with the exception of an appearance in a 1920 silent film called Build Thy House, Rains' true film debut came in James Whale's The Invisible Man in 1933 which Whale made between Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Larry assures his father that the perceived fracture between him and his family isn't as bad as it seems and tells him he followed news accounts and beamed with pride when Sir John won the prestigious Belden Prize for his research. "The whole business is probably my fault. The tradition also insists that the Talbots be the stiff-necked, undemonstrative type. Frequently, this has been carried to very unhappy extremes," Sir John tells his son. "Don't I know that," Larry says, almost under his breath. "Larry, let's decide between you and I that from now on there shall be no such reserve," his father suggests. 
Father-and-son bonding begins almost immediately with the arrival of the final parts that Sir John needs to complete a powerful new telescope he's installing in his in-house observatory. He can hardly wait to get the device working so he enlists his son's help to carry the boxes upstairs and help him set up. While Sir John Talbot might be brilliant when it comes to matters of research and theory, when something requires assembly, he often runs into trouble. Fortunately, while his son Larry might not share his high IQ, he compensates for that with an ability to fix just about anything and soon the new telescope's installation and optics satisfy his father and his son's work on it impresses Sir John as well. Sir John assumes that Larry must work in a similar field to accomplish such a task, but Larry says he just has a knack for mechanical things. He also mentions to his father that he didn't realize that he'd added astronomy to his many areas of expertise, but Sir John denies he has. "All astronomers are amateurs. When it comes to the heavens, there's only one professional," his father tells him. After Sir John tries it out for a little while, there isn't much to see during the daytime so he excuses himself and Larry takes his seat at the large magnifying device and finds one celestial object that seems heaven sent to him — a young woman (Evelyn Ankers) in her bedroom above a small shop in the downtown area of the village, Larry determines that he must meet this woman soon.
Larry takes his first step toward meeting the woman by wandering into Charles Conliffe Antiques where the young lady happens to work since she is the daughter of the owner (though Larry never learns this or her name in the entire scene). He decides to toy with her at first, acting the part of the type of wolf women more commonly encounter, saying that he seeks a pair of earrings and while she shows him some, he describes a very specific pair that he's looking for — the kind he saw her putting on when he spied her through the telescope. When he reveals that he knows she has a pair (leaving out how he knows). Gwen tells him that they aren't for sale. Larry decides that if he can't get the earrings, he'll purchase something else instead. A curious Gwen asks how he knew about her earrings and Larry tells her he's a psychic — it's a power that kicks in anytime he spots a beautiful girl. Talbot settles on buying a walking stick. He rejects the first one with a gold tip that Gwen shows him as
well as the second with a dog on the handle. He likes a third though — at first joking that it would make a good putter — then he notices that it also has a carved dog on the handle and a star. He wonders aloud what that could mean. "I thought you were psychic," Gwen says. He tells her that the cane is made only of wood and silver — and doesn't have blue eyes. She explains that it isn't a dog but a wolf and that star is a pentagram and she prices the piece at three pounds, which Larry calculates as "15
dollars for an old stick." She explains to him that it's a rare piece because the wolf and pentagram are the sign of the werewolf, a creature about which Talbot at this point shows complete ignorance, asking her what a werewolf is. "That's a human being that at certain times of the year changes into a wolf," she informs him. He laughs it off. "You mean, runs around on all fours and bites and snaps and bays at the moon?" he asks. "Even worse than that sometimes," Gwen replies, adding that the pentagram marks the werewolf as well as their next victim. "Oh, what big eyes you have Grandma," Larry jokes as he flirts across the counter. Gwen confirms that Little Red Riding Hood was a werewolf story, but says there have been many others. She then becomes the first person to recite the infamous poem to him in the film: "Even a man who is pure in heart/and says his prayers by night/may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/and the autumn moon is bright." Gwen still wants to know how he knew about her earrings and Larry says that she should take a walk with him that night and they'll talk it over, but she says no, then they hear the hoofbeats of horses outside. As they go outside the shop, they see the arrival of gypsies, which Gwen identifies as fortune tellers who arrive around this time every year. Larry, who still persists in trying to get Gwen to go out with him suggests they get their fortunes told that evening. Her response steadfastly continues to be, "No" but Larry tells her he'll be outside the store at 8.When Larry returns to the Talbot Castle, Sir John recognizes the markings on his son's new cane as the sign of the werewolf. "That's just a legend though, isn't it?" he asks his father. "Yes, but like most legends it must have some basis in fact. It's probably some ancient explanation for the dual personality in each of us," Sir John speculates. While I couldn't appreciate this aspect of The Wolf Man when I first became a fan of the film in my pre-school days, each time I've watched in the many decades since, it becomes so much clearer how this is as much a psychological horror story as it is a monster movie. Eventually, we do see that after Larry gets bitten, he undergoes an actual physical transformation, but for a little while the movie does play with the idea that it's all in his head. Even after the audience knows the curse exists and Larry does indeed change into a werewolf, when he tries to seek help and explain this to others, Sir John thinks that all he requires is some rest, Paul Montford believes Larry should be punished for committing murders and Dr. Lloyd (Warren William), whom we've yet to meet, thinks he's had a psychological breakdown and needs help restoring his sanity, not jail time punishing him for his crimes. In the current scene, Sir John even finds a book in his library with the poem and repeats it once again to Larry.
Larry's a guy who just won't take no for an answer, so as promised he shows up in front of the antique shop that night despite the fact that Gwen said she wouldn't go with him. Despite her negative answer, Gwen turns up as well — though she brings a safety net in the form of her friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm), who is anxious to have her fortune read. You'd think that where the gypsies set up shop would give the trio second thoughts as they have to walk deep into the fog-shrouded woods to find their encampment. While The Wolf Man already looks great, we really can see the decade in filmmaking advancements start to appear now through Joseph Valentine's sharp cinematography, Jack Otterson's art direction and R.A. Gausman's set decoration. Credited as associate art director is none other than Robert Boyle, who just received an honorary Oscar in 2008 for his lifetime achievement as an art director and production designer on Hitchcock's North by Northwest, The Birds and Marnie as well as other films such as the original Cape Fear, In Cold Blood, Fiddler on the Roof and The Shootist. As they slog through the murky view, Jenny notices some wolfsbane blooming by a tree, which — of course — prompts another recitation of that poem. When they arrive, they find the gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). Jenny asks him if he
can really read the future. "I will not disappoint you, my lady," he replies. Jenny begs to be the first to hear her fortune and Larry has no objection, since he wants to be alone with Gwen anyway and soon talks her into taking a stroll in those creepy woods after Jenny steps inside Bela's tent. Lurking around the gypsy encampment is Bela's older mother Maleva (the one-of-a-kind character actress Maria Ouspenskaya). Inside the tent, Bela has Jenny cut a deck of Tarot cards. On their walk into the woods, Larry comes clean to Gwen about how he knew about her earrings (and, amazingly, she doesn't flee at the thought that he's a peeping tom who stalked her), saying it was an accident that he caught sight of her with the telescope as he was just testing the refractor. Gwen has a
confession of her own to make — she kept resisting his overtures because she's engaged and will be getting. "In fact, I really shouldn't be here," she says. Back at the fortune teller's tent, Bela notices the wolfsbane that Jenny brought with her and suddenly grabs his head as if he has a migraine. "Can you tell me when I'm going to be married?" Jenny asks, apparently oblivious to the gypsy's pain. When she does notice how he's acting, she assumes he saw something bad and grills him about it. Bela puts on a happy face and asks for her hands, explaining that her left hand shows her past, her right hand shows her future. Jenny eagerly complies, but Bela sees the pentagram on her right palm and even Jenny recognizes that something has disturbed the fortune teller. "I can't tell you anything tonight. Come back tomorrow," Bela replies as he steps away from the table. Jenny persists in quizzing him about what he saw and if it was something evil. Bela won't answer — he just yells at her to go away. "Go away now! Quickly!" he shouts. Jenny follows orders and sprints out of the tent. Maleva turns and notices that one of the gypsies' horses has started acting crazy and she sees Bela standing agonized. As Jenny runs through the woods, a wolf's howl can be heard.
Larry and Gwen hear the ominous wolf sound first, followed soon after by Jenny's scream. Talbot tells Gwen to stay where she is and he takes off, carrying his cane with him. Part of the genius here is that we don't see what has already attacked and killed Jenny and then
takes on Larry — a tree obstructs our view so we can only see Larry whacking the killer hard with the cane. Eventually, Gwen finds him with his clothes torn, collapsed by the tree, saying he was attacked by a wolf. The gypsy woman Maleva comes by and she helps Gwen get the injured Larry back to Talbot Castle where Paul Montford happens to be. Gwen gives him and Sir John the lowdown about what happened in the woods and mentions how Maleva helped her, but the gypsy woman has slipped away as if she were never there. Montford decides to gather men and go back to the scene. When Montford and his men get there, they discover that Jenny indeed is dead, her jugular slit, but they find no evidence of a dead wolf. What they do find is the corpse of the gypsy Bela with a massive head wounds though his feet are bare. Lying near his body, they also discover Larry Talbot's cane. The next morning, Montford, accompanied by Dr. Lloyd, pay a visit on Larry to ask him some questions about the incident. Larry admits that the cane belongs to him — that's what he used to kill the wolf. They tell him they found no wolf, just the gypsy. Larry insists it was a wolf because it bit him on the chest and he opens his shirt to show them the wound — but it seems to have healed magically overnight. To go much further into the minutiae of the film's story would get into its spoilers, not that much should be a surprise after 70 years. 
Truly though, it's easier to appreciate The Wolf Man now than as a child. The idea that Larry might have snapped really entices me, even if the movie doesn't play with the notion long (or at all really since in the opening credits they don't say "Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot" but "Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man." None of the classic horror films frighten that much, but few get stuffed with as many ideas as The Wolf Man. Siodmak's screenplay touches on mental health, religion, intolerance and other topics I'm probably missing. Rains' Sir John Talbot character acts as the mouthpiece for most of the ideas, but not always. Consider this great exchange between Larry and his father after Larry has come to believe he has the werewolf curse and Larry tries to ease into the discussion by grilling his dad on the topic.
SIR JOHN: It's an old legend. You'll find it in the folklore of almost every nation. The scientific name is lycanthropia. It's a variety of schizophrenia.
LARRY: That's all Greek to me.
SIR JOHN: Well, it is Greek. It's a technical expression for something very simple. The good and evil in every man's soul. In this case, evil takes the shape of an animal.
LARRY: But do you believe in these yarns?
SIR JOHN: Larry, to some people life is very simple. They decide this is good, that is bad, this is wrong, that's right. There's no right and wrong, no good and bad. No shadings and grays, all blacks and whites.
LARRY: That would be Paul Montfort.
SIR JOHN: Exactly. Now others of us find that good, bad, right, wrong are many-sided, complex things. We try to see every side but the more we see, the less sure we are. Now, you ask me if I believe a man can become a wolf. Well, if you mean, 'Can he take on the physical characteristics of an animal?' — no — it's fantastic! However, I do believe that most anything can happen to a man inside his own mind."
(church bells ring)
SIR JOHN: Time for church. You know Larry, belief in the hereafter is a very healthy counterbalance to all the conflicting doubts man is plagued with these days.
The crucial words contained in that exchange come when Sir John tells Larry, "…the more we see, the less sure we are." While the elder Talbot says those words, he also declares with certainty that a physical transformation of a man would be impossible, a belief he will have challenged in the harshest way possible at the movie's end when he's placed in the same position that Larry was when he tried to save Jenny, only Sir John rushes to save Gwen and uses the same cane to kill the wolf and then watches in horror as he sees the creature revert to the human form of his son. Rains' facial expression is remarkable when you consider that the actor has to conjure what the proper look would be for something that no one has experienced in real life. Another of the many great conversations come when Dr. Lloyd tries to convince Sir John to get Larry help, but Talbot resists and Lloyd questions his motive.
DR. LLOYD: Sir John, your son is a sick man. He has received a shock that has caused severe psychic maladjustment. You must send him out of this village.
SIR JOHN: You're talking like a witch doctor. If my son is ill, the best place for him is in his own home proving his innocence.
DR. LLOYD: Does the prestige of your family's name mean more to you than your son's health?
I can't end this without discussing in more detail about the great Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva. She was nominated twice for the supporting actress Oscar — each time for single scenes in a movie: in 1936's Dodsworth and 1939's Love Affair. Her character has all the answers and appears to be the only one who can calm the werewolves and lead them to peace after their deaths. "The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over, Bela my son. Now you will find peace," Maleva prays, first over her son, later over Larry. Ouspenskaya was a unique presence in every film she appeared in starting with silents in 1915 through 1949, the year she died. Her age was a subject of dispute. Her headstone gives her birthdate as 1887 but other records dating back to her birthplace in Tula in the Russian Empire say 1876. She also was a diminutive presence, standing a mere 5 feet 1½ inches tall.
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Labels: 40s, Bellamy, Hitchcock, Hopkins, Lon Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Rains, Remakes, Silents, Television, Wayne
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Monday, November 21, 2011
It's Still Alive
By Damian Arlyn
When the 18-year-old Mary Shelley decided to participate in a competition involving her husband and two other colleagues (including the famous British poet Lord Byron) centered on who could write the best horror story, she probably had very little notion that her story, which was reportedly based on a dream she had experienced, would be not only the obvious winner of the competition but go on to become one of the most celebrated and oft-imitated horror stories in Western Civilization. First published in 1818, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus told the terrible tale of a scientist who created a monster and then suffered the disastrous consequences of such an action. Though it has been adapted for stage, screen and radio numerous times (including the campy but highly enjoyable Kenneth Branagh version made in 1994), there is one incarnation that stands above the rest: James Whale's 1931 masterpiece, which celebrates its 80th anniversary today. Released by the same studio as Tod Browning's Dracula and in the same year (a seminal one for monster movies it would seem), Universal's Frankenstein became a Hollywood classic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was turning the unknown actor playing the large, mostly mute creature (an actor so obscure they didn't even include his name in the film's opening credits) into a major motion picture star. That actor's name was Boris Karloff.
Initially, Bela Lugosi was cast as the monster but he turned out to dislike the part so much that he soon quit the picture and Karloff stepped in. Karloff's performance is the heart of Frankenstein. His stiff, lumbering movements and vast emotional mood swings (from innocent curiosity to angry, maniacal rages) perfectly captures the early development of a newborn infant. One of the most heartbreaking
sequences of the film also is one of the most memorable: his tragic encounter with a young girl. Though despised by everyone he comes into contact with, the child is the first and only person not to respond with fear or antagonism to his frightening appearance. She invites him to sit and play with her, tossing flowers into a nearby lake and watching them float. The giddy expression on the monster's face betrays the first real feelings of joy he's experienced since his creation, but it is short-lived. Once the flowers are all gone he stupidly picks up the girl and tosses her in the lake, drowning her in the process (a scene whose second half actually was censored upon original release). He quickly realizes he's done wrong and runs off with a look of fear, panic and confusion on his face, like a toddler who's just broken his mother's favorite vase and knows he's in trouble. It's a tremendously sad moment and not just because of the death of the child but because of the pathetic nature of the monster. Through his ignorance and foolishness, he destroyed the one thing in his life that offered him genuine unconditional love. Karloff's creature is one of the saddest and most sympathetic monsters ever put on screen. Some have speculated in recent years that the monster's lonely and persecuted existence served as a metaphor for director James Whale's own feelings of isolation as a homosexual.The cast surrounding Karloff also is quite good. Colin Clive's portrayal of the obsessed scientist is as equally memorable as Karloff's performance (his declaration of "It's alive!" is forever etched in cinematic history). Dwight Frye plays Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant Fritz with the same gleeful malevolence with which he played Renfield in Browning's film (it's almost as common to mistake Fritz's name for Igor as it is to assume Frankenstein is the name of the monster rather than the doctor). Another Dracula alumnus is Edward Van Sloan (Van Helsing) who once again plays a scientist in Whale's film, though one who meets a far more inauspicious end. Van Sloan also appears in a prologue warning more sensitive audience members of what they're about to see. Interestingly, Van Sloan performed a similar act at the conclusion of Dracula in its initial run.
Like the prior Dracula film, Frankenstein was based not primarily on the author's original novel but on a theatrical adaptation by John L. Balderston. Unlike Browning's film, however, it bore very little resemblance to its source material. Beside the essential premise and the names of a few of the characters, this Frankenstein was a work of total imagination. For example, details about how the creature is brought to life in the book are exceptionally few. This makes the legendary birthing sequence (brilliantly parodied in Mel Brooks' affectionate 1974 spoof Young Frankenstein), wherein Dr. Frankenstein uses the natural elements such as thunder and lightning to animate the lifeless corpse lying flat on the platform being lifted up high into the air while sparks of electricity fly noisily from various mechanical apparatuses all the more impressive. Likewise, the creature's appearance is radically different from that described in the book but no less creative and memorable. The now instantly recognizable look of the monster (the bolts on the neck, the flat head, the green skin, etc) was designed by make-up artist Jack Pierce, the man also responsible for yet another Universal monster a decade later — Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolf Man. Needless to say, Frankenstein was a huge hit upon its release, but unlike a number of other Hollywood classics which now are dated terribly, Whale's film still holds up incredibly well.
One of the qualities that makes it so watchable are the amazing visuals. Clearly inspired by German expressionism, the stark and at times surreal look of the film contributes to the dark Caligari-like atmosphere. Whale was a theater director before he did cinema and he brings a theatricality to the film that helps make it more chilling and captivating. Whale would go on to direct the sequel Bride of Frankenstein (considered by many to be ever better than its predecessor but still unseen by me) and Universal's The Invisible Man. Whale tried to distance himself from his horror films later in his life but his career faltered and he eventually committed suicide in 1957. He even got his own film in 1998 in the form of Gods and Monsters where he was was played by openly gay actor Ian McKellen, who has admitted that he identifies very strongly with the struggles of the talented filmmaker. Regardless, however, of the obscurity or notoriety of Whale's more "serious" output, his horror work is among the best of the genre and Frankenstein wouldn't be the celebrated classic it is today without him. It also makes sense that the story of Frankenstein itself (as originally conceived by Shelley) wouldn't be as remembered today as it is without Whale's film. It's ironic that a story which warns against the dangers of man trying to achieve immortality shows no signs of "dying" anytime soon.
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Labels: 30s, Books, Branagh, Browning, Fiction, Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., Lugosi, McKellen, Mel Brooks, Movie Tributes, Remakes, Sequels, Theater, Whale
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Monday, February 14, 2011
The Blood Is Still the Life
By Damian Arlyn
They may be cold to the touch, but right now vampires are pretty hot. Shows such as Vampire Diaries and True Blood, movies such as Let the Right One In and its American remake Let Me In, books such as the Twilight series (and its accompanying movie adaptations) and even a whole subculture of teenage "vampire-wannabes" serve as constant reminders to us that vampires currently are a very popular cultural phenomenon. Yet, in their various literary, movie and TV incarnations, vampires mostly are portrayed as tortured, sensitive souls cursed to continue their earthly existence through the blood sacrifice of others. I'm not entirely sure when this shift toward conceiving of vampires as sympathetic took place but I think it owes a great deal to the novels Anne Rice wrote in the '70s and '80s. Before romantic, melancholy characters like Lestat and Louis came along, vampires were seen (like werewolves, mummies and Frankenstein) primarily as monsters. They were evil, bloodthirsty beings who actually enjoyed taking the lives of others in order to survive. Almost nowhere is this is more apparent than in Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula, which celebrates its 80th anniversary today. In looking back at this horror classic, one recognizes many of the very qualities that would come to be rejected by modern-day vampire enthusiasts while simultaneously seeing several of the very aspects that entrance them with that whole dark underworld in the first place.
Browning's was not the first cinematic treatment of Bram Stoker's novel. Despite being unable to secure the rights, the great F.W. Murnau adapted it into his 1922 silent Nosferatu and was subsequently sued by Stoker's widow. Murnau's Count Orlock (sinisterly played by German actor Max Schreck in a lot of make-up) was a repulsive creature whose evil was manifested in his hideous appearance which, incidentally, more closely resembles the character described in the original book. Browning's Dracula, on the other hand, is all too human. Played by the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi (who originated the role in a successful Broadway play written by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston), he's handsome, charming, poised, well-dressed, well-groomed and rather sexy. It is this version of the character that most influenced the way the public perceived vampires and Lugosi's Central European elegance and flair played a big part in that.
Though it seems somewhat campy today, Lugosi's performance is iconic and captivated people's imagination at the time. He brought a theatricality to the role that helped to establish vampires as larger-than-life beings who walk, practically glide, untouched through the world of mortals. As Roger Ebert once wrote, "Vampires are always in pose mode... The buried message of many scenes is: Regard me well, for here I am, and I am thus." Speaking in a broken English accent (which, contrary to legend, did not indicate that Lugosi had to learn his lines phonetically; by the time the film was made he spoke English very well), Lugosi welcomes an unsuspecting Renfield — played with equal theatricality by Dwight Frye — into his castle like "a spider spinning his web for the unwary fly." His lines, mostly absent from the original book, are spoken in such a slow, deliberate manner that they have become just as famous for their delivery as for their words: "I never drink... wine," "Listen to them: children of the night. What music they make," and the simple yet hypnotic introduction, "I am... Dracula."
The Deane/Balderston play served as the basis both for the interpretation of the Dracula character and for the structure/aesthetic of the rest of the film. This is why, after a spectacular opening in Dracula's Transylvanian castle, the film takes place mostly in England and takes on the feel of a typical "drawing room" mystery. Browning's approach to the look of the film is appropriately dark and moody but not especially inspired. It has been speculated that the passing of Browning's original choice for the role of Dracula, his friend Lon Chaney, so upset him that he didn't invest as much effort and care into the production as he otherwise would have and in fact left it to cinematographer Karl Freund to do most of he shooting. Interestingly, the crew that filmed the Spanish-language version of Dracula (since it was common practice at that time for studios to make a completely different film utilizing the same sets and costumes rather than simply dub the existing film with foreign languages) created a far more visually interesting product with more camera movement, better staging of certain sequences and even some special effects that made the English version seem a little hokey. What it didn't have, however, was a Dracula with the charisma and screen presence of Bela Lugosi.
There is another element that to modern audiences is noticeably absent from the film. Outside of the opening titles (where Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" can be heard) and a scene in a concert hall, the film is completely devoid of any music. Dracula was one of Browning's first sound pictures and his discomfort with the new technology seems apparent in his use of sound. There are long stretches of silence in the which, though they invoke an atmosphere of suspense and dread, clearly reflect a filmmaker whose training stems from silent cinema. Esteemed minimalist composer Philip Glass attempted to rectify this in 1998 by writing a score for a string quartet that he intended to accompany the film and indeed most DVD versions now have the option of viewing it with a separate audio track that includes Glass' contribution. Although Glass is undeniably talented and the score is itself worth listening to, I personally find it too distracting and intrusive. It transforms Dracula from a piece with perhaps too many silent moments to a film with practically no silent moments. Thus, whenever I sit down to watch it (which usually is every Halloween) I have to do so without Glass' music to really enjoy the experience.
It might be hard now to imagine that anyone ever thought Dracula was scary, but the truth is that people were frightened by what they saw. Decades before newspapers would report that The Exorcist had patrons fainting in the theaters, Dracula had a similar effect on audiences and, to the delight of the studio, it was an enormous box office success. Looked at today a lot of it seems amusing at best and rather silly at worst, but several things save it from being simply a relic of a bygone era: Freund's striking cinematography, some magnificent sets, a few genuinely creepy moments and memorable performances by Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan (as Van Helsing) and, of course, Bela Lugosi (who would become so identified with the role that he would have a lifelong love/hate relationship with it). What also cannot be ignored is the role it played in initiating a whole pantheon of cinematic vampires that would later follow. Just as Bram Stoker's book coalesced and solidified much of the language and imagery that is now associated with the mythology of vampires, Tod Browning's Dracula would establish much of what makes vampires attractive to a moviegoing audience: their mystery, their immortality, their sex appeal. They may have started out as engaging villains and ended up as angst-ridden antiheroes, but regardless of how they got that way, without the work of Browning and Lugosi, we wouldn't have any of the vampire media that we do today...though we shouldn't blame it for that.
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Labels: 30s, Browning, Ebert, Fiction, Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Murnau, Silents, Television
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
From the Vault: Ed Wood
Drawing inspiration from the passion of the "worst director of all time," Tim Burton has fashioned an entertaining biography of Ed Wood that evokes love of film better than anything since The Purple Rose of Cairo.
Wood gained his title by his unintentionally hilarious films of the '50s like Glen or Glenda?, which chronicled his own secret transvestism, and Plan 9 From Outer Space, the ultimate bad movie about an alien plot.
Burton, working from the script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, embraces Wood's earnestness and treats his story with the same respect. While the laughs are nearly nonstop, they never come at the expense of Wood or his adopted family of eccentrics.
Johnny Depp stars as Wood. He disappears completely into the director's optimistic persona. Depp's infectious spirit energizes the whole film, even lending it legitimate pathos in Wood's relationship with the aging, morphine addicted Bela Lugosi.
Martin Landau doesn't just play Lugosi, he becomes Lugosi, thanks partly to Rick Baker's amazing makeup but mostly to Landau's consummate skill. He's funny and crude, pathetic and inspiring. Landau deserves this year's Oscar for best supporting actor.
There is also nice work by Sarah Jessica Parker as Wood's girlfriend as well as by Bill Murray, Jeffrey Jones and, in a late scene that sums up its ideas perfectly, Vincent D'Onofrio.
The essence of Ed Wood is the artistic impulse in everyone and though it's uncertain what guides Wood's passion for filmmaking, it's obvious that it's there and that maybe it should be enough. If only his films weren't so awful.
Burton pays homage to Wood's style of filmmaking by making his own film in glorious black and white cinematography by Stefan Czapsky. The technical credits, including Howard Shore's bouncy score, all hit their marks without being too showy.
Ed Wood succeeds as well as it does because it never looks down upon Wood and the people around him. It would be easy to sneer at the sheer badness of the movies Wood made, but this approach is smarter and, in the end, more satisfying. Despite being a tad overlong, Ed Wood is one of the best films of the year.
Ed Wood could have turned out to be a sad story. As the end credits inform the audience that Wood became an alcoholic and died at 53, Depp's beaming image smiles. They seem incongruous, but the film has exemplified the inexorable link between happiness and tragedy in the artistic process. It finds brilliance in the depths of mediocrity and should touch the heart and mind of any film lover.
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Labels: 90s, Depp, Landau, Lugosi, Murray, Tim Burton
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From the Vault: Martin Landau
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED OCT. 7, 1994
The first time the audience sees Martin Landau in Ed Wood, he's lying in a store's display coffin, complaining about its lack of elbow room. What's interesting is that if you didn't know in advance it was Landau playing Bela Lugosi, you might not recognize him at all.
Rick Baker's makeup transforms his features. With his real voice hidden by a Hungarian accent, Martin Landau the actor disappears and Lugosi, the long dead actor who played Dracula in 1931, comes vividly back to life.
The Lugosi of Ed Wood is not a happy one. He's in his 70s, debilitated not just by his age but by 20 years of morphine addiction. He's also out of work, an "ex-bogeyman" as he refers to himself, who finds work again, even if it is in the monumentally awful films of Edward D. Wood Jr.
While Landau's choice to play Lugosi was an inspired one that should hopefully land him his third Oscar nomination since 1988, the actor was surprised director Tim Burton chose him.
"I'm amazed that Tim thought of me. Well, in the sense that I'd never met Tim. I liked his work a lot ... He was one of those guys I said, 'Gee, I would like to work with that guy.' I got a call and he said, 'You are my first and only choice for this.'"
What Burton saw in Landau is clear from the performance he gives as Lugosi, whose relationship with Wood, played by Johnny Depp, is at the heart of the film.
"I met Johnny and loved him immediately. ... We became friends. Generation gaps — nonsense. I mean, Lugosi and Ed Wood, there was a lot of years between them. Johnny became — and is — my pal."
It's the rapport that develops between the two actors that deepens the movie.
"There is a sweetness in (the relationship between Wood and Lugosi), yet it's got layers ... It's an interesting relationship. You don't see that a lot in film. These are two guys who needed each other and they're two really weird, strange guys."
Landau credits his co-star for the screen relationship's success.
"I love an actor who comes in, ready to work. It's like a good tennis player. They hit the ball where you don't expect it and it's great."
Ed Wood marks the latest in a series of notable roles that have marked a resurgence in Landau's career. Following Tucker: The Man and His Dream in 1988 and Crimes and Misdemeanors in 1989, both of which earned him Oscar nominations, Landau finds himself more in demand than ever.
"The more complicated the character, the better I am. It's the one-dimensional crap that I had to do for years that drove me crazy. If you are in a meaningless, mindless movie playing a one-dimensional character, don't get too clever, because you're only going to dig a hole for yourself ... It's good writing and complicated stuff. When I got Tucker, and there had been a dearth of that stuff coming my way, I said, 'My God, this is a part.'"
He certainly welcomes the praise and Oscar buzz he's receiving for his work as Lugosi, saying it's much better than hearing nothing.
"I'd rather hear this talk than the alternative. I've walked off the stage and people have said, 'That was really great. You look really nice in that suit.' It's looks and feelings that you get. People never say, 'Jeez, you were awful."
In many interviews, Landau has referred to his work in Ed Wood as a love letter to Lugosi, with whom the 60-year-old Landau had a formative film experience.
"I saw (Lugosi) when I was a kid and he scared the life out of me. I literally didn't sleep for days."
The 63-year-old film's power hasn't diminished in Landau's mind.
"It was a revival of Dracula. I was maybe 8 or 9 years old and there was this incredible creature on the screen. Look at it again. It's startling, powerful."
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Labels: Depp, Interview, Landau, Lugosi, Oscars, Tim Burton
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Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Capitalism: a love story
By Edward Copeland
The words that appear on the screen at the opening of Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka, 70 years old today, tells us that the film is set in Paris at the time when a siren was a brunette not an alarm and that when a Frenchman turned off a light, it wasn't because of an air raid. You have to think that those words came from the typewriters of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, who are credited with the screenplay along with Walter Reisch. Lubitsch, Wilder, Brackett and to top it all off, you've got Greta Garbo in a film that was marketed under the tag: Garbo Laughs. So will you. The tone in a way seems reminiscent of Wilder's classic from decades later, One, Two, Three. The story concerns a trio of bumbling of Soviets who come to Paris
attempting to sell the jewels of a former grand duchess only to have the deal legally thwarted by the duchess's man in Paris, Leon (Melvyn Douglas), who gets an injunction saying the goods still belong to the woman (Ina Claire) and the Russians have no right to them. When he talks the trio (Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart and Alexander Granart) into messaging back to Moscow an agreement where the the duchess and the Soviets will split the proceeds of the sale, the communist superiors are furious and send a special envoy to straighten things out in the form of Garbo. Garbo plays Nina Yakushova Ivanoff or Ninotchka, a prim, pure committed communist, devoted to her country's ideals and the eventual fall of capitalism that its inherent corruption will bring. She's insulted that Parisians make an issue of her womanhood, feeling perfectly capable of carrying her own bags. She's shocked at the cost and extravagance of the hotel suite in which she's been booked, which could purchase seven cows for her Russian
people a day. As she tours Paris, including the requisite trip to the Eiffel Tower, by coincidence she runs into Leon and the two competing economic systems can't get in the way of a mutual attraction, especially since Ninotchka doesn't know Leon is her legal rival at first. She appreciates he might have qualities despite being "the unfortunate product of a doomed culture." Ninotchka brought Garbo the third (or fourth, depending how you count the year she was nominated for two movies) and final Oscar nomination of her career and there is probably a good chance she might have won had she not been facing one of the all-time best actress juggernauts in Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara. Garbo is a wonder here, from her rigid beginnings, to the slow seduction the trappings of Parisian society and Douglas' flirtation make on her. Few times on film has such a humorless character been so hilarious, so much so that when Ninotchka finally lets loose with laughter, it is a true joy to behold. For many, Douglas also might prove to be a revelation as the charming Leon. Many may know him best from his Oscar-winning roles from much later in his career, as Paul Newman's tough, grizzled father in 1963's Hud and as the billionaire industrialist who takes a dim gardener under his wing in 1979's Being There. The younger Douglas is witty, charming, fleet on his feet and a great match with Garbo when the two do a drunken duet. Garbo and Douglas also get able support from the rest of the cast which includes Bela Lugosi who gets fourth billing for a single scene as a top Russian official. It's always nice to see Lugosi in a first-class production before his life and career fell apart. Still, it's Garbo and Douglas, with the strong underpinnings of Lubitsch's grace and Wilder and Brackett's wit, that make Ninotchka such a charmer, even 70 years later.Tweet
Labels: 30s, Garbo, Lubitsch, Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Newman, V. Leigh, Wilder
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Herzog Week: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
By Edward Copeland
In a featurette on the DVD for Nosferatu, Werner Herzog says that it was the first time he attempted a pure genre film and boy did he pull it off. He also felt some responsibility, remaking what he considers the first great German film something that, in actuality, he did twice, making both English-language and German-language versions (on the commentary, Herzog prefers the term reversioning). I only watched the German version and it may well be the best screen telling of the Dracula story I've seen put on celluloid.
Of course, the reason Herzog made two versions was the international nature of his cast and as a result many of the actor's voices were dubbed by others in both versions. The great French actress Isabelle Adjani plays Lucy Harker, but since she spoke neither English nor German, another actress voiced her part in both versions.
The same was true of the Frenchman Roland Topor who plays Renfield, though the dubbed cackle would make Dwight Frye proud even though Herzog claims never to have seen the Bela Lugosi version. Klaus Kinski as Dracula and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker could do their own voices in both versions.
Herzog, as a German child born during World War II, felt that there was no German forefathers in his immediate generation to look back to, so he and other aspiring filmmakers went back to their cinematic grandfathers like Murnau who made the silent Nosferatu in an effort to find their way to connect to German culture that didn't involve the horrors of Nazism.
Kinski's makeup, which took four hours a day, is patterned after the look Max Schreck had in the silent classic and his subdued performance boosts the creepy element that Herzog builds. What's particularly amazing for a vampire film is how much is not shown. Only a single drop of blood appears on screen throughout the entire film, yet it doesn't do anything to lessen the horror, though I'm not sure horror is the proper word.
There aren't scares as in your typical vampire story; Herzog's film concentrates on moods and atmospherics and really succeeds better than other movies that take the easier paths to spooking the audience. Kinski's Dracula contains a bit of a tragic figure within his horrific monster body, longing for the ability for human emotions such as love or even the desire just to die.
All the classic characters get a bit of a twist. Ganz's Jonathan Harker starts out as the would-be hero, out to save his wife before becoming a zombified figure shaking in a corner. Walter Landegast's Van Helsing isn't the fearsome vampire hunter of some versions, but just your average doctor who believes in science and pooh-poohs the superstition when Adjani's Lucy tries to warn him of the vampire in their midst.
Lucy changes the most. It's somewhat ironic that this version premiered in 1979, the same year that Sigourney Weaver first became Ripley in Alien, because Lucy is the character that pretty much takes charge when it comes to trying to stop Dracula.
Now, she doesn't do some Ripley-style asskicking, but it is an interesting take, especially within her village, which has been hit by the plague and provides some unusual sequences where Lucy tries to enlist help only to find the living citizens drinking and celebrating what they assume will be their last dances.
As I've dived into Herzog for this week's project, I've found his body of work to be more eclectic than you'd think while still showing some of his signatures within the different films. Of all those I've viewed, Nosferatu may be my favorite Herzog so far.
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Labels: 70s, Foreign, Herzog, Lugosi, Murnau, Sigourney Weaver, Silents
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Thursday, July 26, 2007
All in all, I'd rather be watching Fields
By Edward Copeland
Thanks to an insanely good deal on one of the W.C. Fields DVD collections, I've recently gone on a spree of watching and re-watching the works of the late comic actor. It's been a fascinating exercise. I've learned a few things and, needless to say, I've been entertained a lot.
I can't put an exact date on the first time I actually saw W.C. Fields in a movie, but I certainly remember the first time I saw him: It was in that classic poster with him in a hat sitting behind a hand of playing cards. In my childhood, it seemed to be ubiquitous: In restaurants, department stores. Everywhere you looked, W.C. seemed to peering from behind those cards.
It wasn't until years later that I saw my first film of his (I believe it was The Bank Dick), but it wasn't until I was an adult that I really started examining his creative output. Since I don't recall the order I originally saw things in and I've re-watched most of the films and shorts I'm going to discuss recently, I've decided to divide the shorts and features into rough categories.
The great Criterion Collection DVD of six of his classic shorts actually provided me the first exposure to all of these, despite being very familiar with their reputations. It includes his 1915 silent short Pool Sharks, which is funny even with its somewhat primitive special effects depicting miraculous billiard shots.
What was so fascinating watching these shorts after I'd watched and re-watched the features is how many of his most famous routines he used over and over again, with a little twist here and there. His hilarious sequence with the caddy that I first saw in 1934's You're Telling Me originated nearly word for word in the 1930 short The Golf Specialist. The main difference is his character in the short is wanted by the law (If you watch it, read the list of his "crimes" closely: It contains some of the best jokes including "Eating spaghetti in public" and "Teaching the facts of life to an Indian." 1932 brought a controversial short, The Dentist, which still seems to be pushing boundaries today when you consider it is 75 years old. He even tells someone to go to hell. 1933 brought three more shorts: The Fatal Glass of Beer, The Barber Shop and The Pharmacist, though by then he was moving into full-length features. Both of those shorts had routines he'd return to again. In The Barber Shop, it sets up the premise of him unwittingly being credited for capturing a crook as in The Bank Dick. In The Pharmacist, it was the first of at least three instances where an on-screen child accuses W.C. of not loving them anymore and he starts to haul off and hit them because he's not going to let them say he doesn't love them.
Looking at most of his work, the characters Fields played usually fell into two types: the curmudgeon of a con man or the henpecked husband suffering at the hands of ungrateful families. I thought I'd divide his works into those two camps, for further discussion.
1934's The Old-Fashioned Way is one of the main instances where Fields takes on the role of someone running a carnival, in this case The Great McGonigle, always one step ahead of creditors and the law. The film is hardly one of his best, but it does allow Fields to display his juggling skills and to re-create one of his fabled stage triumphs, "The Drunkard." 1936's Poppy again placed him in the carnival, this time as Professor Eustace P. McGargle. It also sets up the recurring theme of a father out to make a better life for his daughter (played in this case by Rochelle Hudson). The highlight of the film is his con involving a "talking dog" and a barkeep, in order to steal some quick cash.
The same theme takes hold in 1939's You Can't Cheat an Honest Man where this time Fields' shady circus owner is named Larson E. Whipsnade, who schemes to get his daughter hitched to a wealthy man and away from ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the dummy he despises, Charlie McCarthy. The sparring between Fields and McCarthy is fun, but as disturbing as it is now to see any human being putting on blackface in old films, it seems doubly disturbing to see that racist gag trotted out on a ventriloquist's doll. There was no circus involved, but he was all con in his fabled teaming with the great Mae West in My Little Chickadee. West and Fields reportedly hated each other, but this comic Western still has a lot of highlights, including Margaret Hamilton as a world-class prude out to drive West out of town.
While W.C. Fields' image usually is one of the con man and the curmudgeon, a great many of his best films portray him as the put-upon husband, abused by his wife and other family members. 1934 offered two examples of this: You're Telling Me and It's a Gift. It's a Gift has the stronger reputation, but watching both again in close proximity, I actually find myself preferring You're Telling Me. In it, Fields plays would-be inventor Sam Bisbee, eager to make his fortune with his ingenuity such as puncture-proof car tires only to be thwarted time and time again by fate. He is even driven to the point of leaving town and attempting suicide until he mistakenly believes he's saved another downtrodden person (Adrienne Ames), unaware that she's really a princess. She takes a liking to poor Sam and accompanies him back to town where he finally earns respect. This is where W.C. repeats the caddy gag from the short, only here he sharpens it and improves on it to even greater results.
It's a Gift while great, didn't hold up as well for me, though we do get to see for the second time the use of "I'm not gonna let this child tell me I don't love him" gag. In this one, he's general store owner Harold Bissonette, dreaming of life on a California orange grove where might find peace and get his family off his back. When Ivan at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear recently compiled his alternative to the AFI list, he made a point of singling out Fields' 1935 film Man on the Flying Trapeze, since it is a lesser known title and it shouldn't be. It's one of his very best. Memory expert Ambrose Wolfinger (Fields) just wants to take a day off work to go see a wrestling match, but it's easier said than done, thanks to misunderstandings, another ungrateful family and all-around bad luck. It's truly amazing to see how soft-spoken Fields is in this outing. There's barely a trace of the misanthrope here and the audience's sympathies lie totally with him. For those who haven't seen much Fields, this is one of the top titles to seek out. Man on the Flying Trapeze also is notable for being directed by Clyde Bruckman, who co-directed the silent masterpiece The General with Buster Keaton. For me though, the best example of Fields as henpecked husband is his role as Egbert Souse. It's amazing how many elements get stuffed into The Bank Dick, starting with perhaps his finest take on an ungrateful child, an unlikely stint as a film director and once again taking credit for foiling a crime when he didn't that gets him a job at the grateful bank. The gags come fast and furious and The Bank Dick never slows for a second. For me, it remains my favorite Fields comedy.
Finally, of the Fields films I've seen, there are the ones that don't easily fit into either of the earlier two categories, with Fields often in supporting parts. The great Pauline Kael often used to cite 1932's Million Dollar Legs as her choice for the greatest film ever made, but I'd like to think she was joking. Still, it is entertaining, even though Fields takes a back seat to the film's real star, Jack Oakie. Fields plays the president of a nearly bankrupt small country who hopes to use Oakie's athletic prowess to gain Olympic glory and perhaps lift his country out of the economic doldrums.
The same year, Fields starred with Alison Skipworth in one of the many sequences of If I Had a Million, which recounts how different people take advantage of a sudden cash cow, in their case seeking revenge on road hogs. It's quite funny, though the sequence starring Charles Laughton is really the uneven film's highlight.
1933 put W.C. in one of those 1930s curiosities International House, where there is very little plot and just an excuse to toss comics and musicians together for a diverting short feature. Fields gets some nice moments as Professor Henry R. Quail, who mistakenly finds himself landing at the title hotel. There also are fun comic turns by Bela Lugosi and George Burns and Gracie Allen. It's mystifying now though to see the virtually forgotten actress Peggy Hopkins Joyce play herself as a big deal in the film. However, as is often the case, getting to see Fields play opposite another comic master, in this case the marvelously daffy Gracie Allen, makes the whole enterprise worthwhile.
I wish I could have seen Fields play Humpty Dumpty in 1933's Alice in Wonderland, but I did get to see him play it relatively straight as Micawber in 1935's David Copperfield and it really makes me wonder what he would have been like in other roles outside his usual range. His final starring vehicle, 1941's Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, may be his oddest film. In a way, you can spot the seeds of the type of strange, mind-bending films of Charlie Kaufman as Fields plays himself pitching an idea for a screenplay to a movie executive, mixing the surreal and the real so frequently and so often you are never quite sure what is his storytelling and what is really happening. Either way, it's funny and unusual and worth repeated viewings.
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Labels: 30s, 40s, Fields, Kael, Keaton, Laughton, Lugosi, Silents
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
"The most unusual MGM movie ever"
By Edward Copeland
That's how Robert Osborne introduced a recent airing of Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks on Turner Classic Movies. The cult classic from the director of Bela Lugosi's 1931 Dracula was released 75 years ago today.
Even three-quarters of a century later, Freaks is a difficult film to describe and its appeal is even harder to sell to those who only hear the plot synopsis and might expect nothing more than a truly sick exploitation film better suited as gross-out attractions in state fairs of days past. That's OK, you're just not one of us, one of us, one of us. Simply put, the title just about says it all — emphasized when a hand violently rips through the movie's title card at the outset. Set in a circus sideshow, Freaks focuses on the lives of the "deformed" and "nature's oddities," though really the biggest freak in the movie is a "normal" human. Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), an acrobat described as the "peacock of the air," who enjoys teasing the lovesick little person Hans (Harry Earles), especially once she learns he's an heir to a sizable estate. Cleo sets out to trick him into marriage in hopes of stealing his fortune.
Hans can't seen through her, but the little woman who loves him, Frieda (Daisy Earles), certainly can as do the other members of the sideshow attractions, who eventually set out to inflict a more sinister Revenge of the Nerds-style revenge on the acrobat. Frieda's motivation is love of Hans and the other freaks, while concerned about Hans, really want to teach Cleo a lesson, especially after watching how she mocks them all during a segment that even gets its own title card: The Wedding Feast. What's amazing about the film is that, even after 75 years, it retains a lot of power that goes beyond the morbid fascination one would expect. Sure, there are throwaway gags based on the people's conditions, such as an armless woman sipping wine with her foot. Then there are other touches such as when the real-life Siamese twins, the Hilton sisters, play off their ability to react to the other's senses. (Violet makes out and we see Daisy react).
For those unfamiliar with the Hilton sisters, they not only appeared in this cult classic but inspired a modern Broadway cult classic of their own with the 1997 musical Side Show with a strong score featuring music by Bill Russell and lyrics by Henry Krieger, who has three Oscar nominations for best song this year for his new contributions to the film version of Dreamgirls. Tod Browning even appears briefly as a character in the musical. Side Show earned four Tony nominations, including a rare dual nomination for Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner who played Violet and Daisy. Alas, Side Show went home empty-handed, losing book and score to the inferior Ragtime and musical to the empty spectacle of The Lion King, though it's hard to argue that Ripley and Skinner should have beaten the magnificent Natasha Richardson in the revival of Cabaret.
As for Freaks the movie, it seemed even more powerful upon rewatching it recently than it did when I first saw it years ago. Browning creates a truly unique atmosphere and builds genuine creepy suspense as the freaks chase Cleopatra, crawling slowly through the mud on whatever limbs remain. It's funny, as Osborne told it, to know that MGM was so ashamed of Freaks at the time, it let its rights to the film slip away and removed Leo the Lion but, once people rediscovered it years later and it was reassessed more thoughtfully, MGM jumped at the chance to reacquire the rights and put their logo back on the film where it began and belonged.
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Labels: 30s, Browning, Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Musicals, Theater
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