Monday, December 05, 2011
Like seeing your dreams in the middle of the day
By Edward Copeland
Throughout my years of reviewing, when the time came to write about the latest Martin Scorsese picture, I always felt compelled to try to craft the best piece my capabilities allowed. With Hugo marking the first time the director has used the advancements in 3D technology, I not only owed Hugo the best prose I could muster, but it required seeing Hugo the way Scorsese intended. However, because of the physical limitations that have burdened me since 2008, trips to a movie theater have become a daunting task that requires literal heavy lifting by others and a substantial expenditure of energy on my part to accomplish such a journey, even with my good friend Adderall's help. Because of the logistics involved to get me out of my bed and my home, I usually only get out for doctors' appointments and unplanned trips to the emergency room. However, when Martin Scorsese releases a new film to theaters in 3D, I had to do my damnedest to get there physically. I had to wait to see Shine a Light and Shutter Island on DVD. Hugo happens to be the first film I've seen in a movie theater in more than a year (and only my fourth since 2009) as well as my first in "real D" 3D ever. If Marty's name weren't attached, I wouldn't have made the effort, not just for any 3D movie. This creates perhaps the oddest start to a review of a Scorsese movie I've written, but when your life undergoes as massive a change as mine has in the past three years, it feels appropriate to begin my Hugo review by focusing first on what it took to get me to the movie in the first place.
As frequent readers of this blog know, I am bedridden. I won't repeat the details of what put me here, but you can read this if you don't know. To get out of bed requires at least two people setting me up on a sling and attaching it to our electric lift. For a trip that isn't to a doctor, some additional steps have to be taken. For those journeys, I can go in my usual hospital gown attire. To visit a more public place such as a movie theater, I first have to be helped to put on a semblance of clothing, which isn't the easiest task in the world when your legs don't move and you have to work the pants and shirt around a suprapubic catheter and its attached collection bag. When that's out of the way and I'm centered on the sling and its straps are attached to the hooks of the lift, one person uses the lift to raise me off the bed while the other stands behind my wheelchair to guide me in and make sure I'm tight against the back and won't slide out during transport. We strap belts around my chest and legs to help me maneuver the chair from my bedroom through the house, into the garage and up the ramp of our specially equipped van where I perform a 180 degree turn in a limited space. Then four tethered hooks and a seat belt are attached to me. Assuming all of this has gone OK — and sometimes it takes quite a bit of trial and error to make certain that I'm centered on the sling and that I'm firmly against the back of the wheelchair. Then we can ride. For trips to doctors, we receive the help of the local ambulance service that provides free "lift assist" support, sending one of their paramedic units to help my aging father get me up. Unfortunately, this service only applies to medical-related jaunts. So, unless I lied, we couldn't have them come out and help get me up so I could go see Hugo.
Three mornings a week, I have caregivers who help to give me baths, etc., from 8 a.m. to noon. According to the national website for Hugo, the theater closest to me would have its first 3D showing on the Monday after it opened at 10:15 a.m. So I decided to make my first plan be that my caregiver would come an hour later than usual and I'd eat breakfast before he got here. He'd help get me dressed and get me up and into the chair and go see Hugo with us and we'd take the bath afterward. Unfortunately, the website was incorrect and when I checked the actual theater's showtime, they weren't having a 3D showing of Hugo until 2:30 in the afternoon, which wouldn't work because of other commitments the caregiver had in the afternoon not to mention how much that would cost me in overtime. With Monday blown, I started looking at the other theaters showing Hugo in the city. The earliest 3D showtime for Hugo in the city was 11:30 a.m. at a different theater. Wednesday couldn't work for the caregiver because his son had a doctor's appointment during the time the movie would be playing. Finally, I hit upon a plan: Thankfully, the caregiver's Thursday was free so he came just to help me get dressed, out of the bed and into the wheelchair and to accompany us to the theater for Hugo.
I had been to this theater many times, but not since I'd been forced to use a wheelchair (which occurred prior to my bedridden status) so I didn't realize how piss-poor their seating arrangements for wheelchairs were. Because of my nearly constant leg pain, when I did go to the movies in the chair, to make things as comfortable as possible, I tilt-raise the chair and recline the back so the footrests can be folded to extend my legs out straight. At the other two theaters in the city I'd usually frequent, it was never a problem as handicapped seating would have recessed openings adjacent to them allowing plenty of room for this to take place. At this theater, the space between the ground level rows of seating and the start of the stadium seating is very narrow and I barely had enough room to do much of the recline or lifting of legs without smacking into either the railing behind me or the seats in front of me. I arranged myself the best I could and anxiously awaited Hugo's start.
Of course, first I had to endure the trailers, which in the non-3D portion previewed a film set for the January dumping ground co-starring Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton called Joyful Noise. The trailer even includes a joke about Parton's plastic surgery, which they really had to include since her mouth now resembles Jack Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman when he puts the flesh makeup over his disfigured visage. They then told us to put on our glasses for the 3D previews. All the animated films designed and made in the process such as The Lorax, The Adventures of Tintin and The Pirates: Band of Misfits looked impressive. However, the previews of re-releases of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and James Cameron's Titanic, both retrofitted to appear to be in 3D, looked like shit. Both should carry the tag line: Think They Stunk in Two Dimensions? Wait Until You Catch a Whiff in Three! Finally, it was time for Hugo.
I can't underestimate how excited I get when I'm about to see a new Martin Scorsese picture unfurl in a movie theater. I used to feel that way when I'd see the white-on-black titles of a Woody Allen film before he hit his slump and started repeating himself in the '90s. With the exceptions of Shine a Light and Shutter Island, I've seen every Scorsese feature in a theater starting with The King of Comedy. That includes After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ (which required driving to another state and standing in a line in the rain since no Oklahoma theater would show it), "Life Lessons" from New York Stories, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence (which I also drove out of state to see, but only because I was impatient), Casino (which I saw on a New York junket where I briefly spoke to Scorsese), Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed. I even saw A Personal Journey Through American Movies With Martin Scorsese when it was shown in a New York theater and was able to see The Last Waltz in a 20th anniversary theatrical re-release. Now, Hugo joins that list. That's 17 films. I may have seen more films in a theater directed by Scorsese than by any other director if it weren't for Woody Allen's prolific nature and my earlier start with Steven Spielberg (beginning with Jaws), though Hugo puts Scorsese ahead of Spielberg by one. When I worshipped Woody, I stuck with him well into his doldrums. My first Allen in a theater remains my choice for his best, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and I saw them all that way through Curse of the Jade Scorpion. After that, I didn't have to see them and then it required too much work to see them. I've only seen one Allen in a theater since — Whatever Works — and that had as much to do with Larry David as with Woody. Still, that adds up to 20 films in a theater. It's been Spielberg's later years when I've been skipping out on theatrical showings (even when I could have attended).
Hugo starts with an awe-inspiring image that serves well as an introduction to live-action 3D for a skeptic who has felt, based on what he has read and heard, that 3D was little more than a gimmick to pump up movie ticket prices. With the exception of a couple of IMAX shorts in its early days, the last (and only) 3D movie I had ever watched in a theater was 1983's hokey-as-hell Jaws 3-D, back when the glasses were those cheap cardboard spectacle with plastic lenses of red and blue (or cyan if you want to get technical). In Hugo, we open on an FX shot that evokes an overhead shot of the entirety of a snowy Paris in the latter half of the 1920s, gliding past familiar landmarks until we arrive at its central train station and one of its huge clocks, only instead of the Arabic numeral 4, a boy's face peers out at us. The shot reminds me of young Henry Hill looking out his window at the gangsters' arrival at Tuddy's cab stand in Goodfellas. What Hugo shows us only gets more enthralling from there.
We learn that the 12-year-old boy is Hugo Cabret (played by the engaging Asa Butterworth, whose penetrating blue eyes might carry him far), who lives inside the walls of that Paris train station, winding all those clocks to make sure they keep running on time. It is a job that he inherited by default when his father (played by Jude Law in flashbacks) dies and his only living relative, Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), takes him in. Uncle Claude is a drunken lout whose job is winding the train station's clocks so — at the cost of Hugo's education — the uncle jerks Hugo out of school and makes him his apprentice at the train station, learning his job and living there as well. Soon, Uncle Claude vanishes and Hugo takes it upon himself to perform his uncle's duties. Since he's doing the job unofficially, Hugo must filch whatever he can for sustenance as well as parts to finish repairing the automaton that his father found languishing at the museum where he worked and brought home to restore. Hugo has continued working on the unusual piece, convinced that if he fixes it, he will find a message left behind by his much-missed father. Hugo creates his own universe within the train station, though he must be careful to escape the notice of the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), whose main joy in life appears to be apprehending unattended children and shipping them off to orphanages. Separate from the use of 3D, once the movie takes us inside Hugo's world of the train station, the film proves to be a true triumph of production design that I imagine dazzles just as much in the 2D version. Dante Ferretti (Oscar winner for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and The Aviator) serves as production designer, the eighth time he's worked with Scorsese, and the sets for Hugo prove so elaborate that the credits list 10 art directors who assisted Ferretti. Francesca Lo Schiavo performed the role of set decorator, her 18th collaboration with Ferretti (she won her two Oscars for the same two films he did) and her fifth with Scorsese. Together, all the crafts people, their meticulous work filmed through the lens of master cinematographer Robert Richardson (Oscar winner for JFK and The Aviator and whose credits also include Inglourious Basterds, The Doors, City of Hope and Eight Men Out), create a visual feast that's a wonder to behold and would make a remarkable moviegoing experience even if it lacked sound, appropriate given its underlying subject matter.
Hugo has been adapted by John Logan from the unusual children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The book, which Selznick (a first cousin, twice removed of the famous producer David O. Selznick) wrote and illustrated, is historical fiction that runs more than 500 pages long of which nearly half of those pages contain illustrations. Published in 2007, the book Selznick describes as "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things" won the 2008 Caldecott Medal, the first for a "novel" since the prize goes to picture books. No wonder it attracted Scorsese.
In the train station, one of the main places where Hugo finds parts to swipe for his automaton is the toy shop, run by a very grumpy man (Ben Kingsley, always good, but giving another memorable performance in a career full of diverse roles). Believing he's dozing, Hugo reaches up to pinch some parts when the man grabs him and harangues him for being the thief who has been stealing from
him. He demands that the boy empty his pockets and Hugo complies on the right side containing all the pilfered pieces, but avoids his left pocket until the toy shop owner insists. Hugo reluctantly removes his father's notebook, which elicits a strange reaction from the man, who demands to know if Hugo made the drawings in it. A desperate Hugo begs the man to let him have the notebook back since he didn't steal it, but the toy shop's owner refuses, forcing Hugo to run along before he calls the Station Inspector. Later in the day, Hugo makes a new acquaintance — Isabelle (the ever-versatile Chloë Grace Moretz), who turns out to live with the toy shop owner, whom she calls Papa Georges, and his wife, Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory). Hugo tells her about his notebook and how important it is to him, but refuses to say why. He waits for Isabelle's Papa Georges to close for the day and then starts to follow him, again pleading for the return of the notebook. The bitter man tells Hugo he plans to go home and burn it. Isabelle, who is listening nearby, promises Hugo that she'll keep watch over it so nothing happens. The next day, he returns to the toy shop. Georges says he expected to see Hugo again and hands him a cloth full of ashes, sending the boy fleeing in tears. Isabelle overhears the exchange and tells Hugo not to cry, but she again wants to know what's in the notebook because Papa Georges and Mama Jeanne talked and argued about it all night and Papa Georges cried as well, but he didn't burn it. He just did that to try to get Hugo to stop bothering him.Since Hugo opened prior to Thanksgiving and was being discussed in detail long before that, it's doubtful that many readers interested in the film don't already know the basics of the story and this isn't the type of movie where one needs to worry about spoilers. (If there exists in the world a person outraged that a Hugo review ruins the movie's revelation that Papa Georges is actually filmmaking pioneer Georges Méliès, I want to meet that person to find out how they knew who Méliès is but hadn't heard or read about Hugo's plot yet.) Martin Scorsese does have an unfortunate tendency to be pigeonholed as a filmmaker, when he may be the most eclectic great director we have working today — and he's been that way for a long time. In a way, you could say he resembles the Howard Hawks of his generation, working in practically every genre yet leaving his distinctive stamp on all his works. Granted, Scorsese possesses more
sophistication than Hawks — in terms of both visual style and subject matter. Hawks also didn't run back and forth between fiction and documentaries the way Scorsese does. Hugo, while it's perfectly suitable for kids to see, really works best for a special kind of kid — the type of kid Scorsese was or that I was or many of my friends were — budding film buffs. Hugo, at its core, isn't really the story of two kids trying to solve a mystery as they do in many tales that enchant young people, though that's there. It's not merely the story of an orphaned boy living alone inside a place that seems magical to him but who's pursued by a pseudo-villain, though that element exists in Hugo as well, primarily in the form of Sacha Baron Cohen's Station Inspector stalking the corridors with his Doberman. It isn't even the story of how a boy teaches a bitter old man to love life again, but that common children's story not only exists in Hugo, the main strand builds from it to accomplish what Scorsese really aims to do: pen a cinematic love letter to movies. Because of all the great directors working today, it's doubtful that any filmmaker loves movies more than Scorsese does — and it isn't just making movies that he loves. He loves watching them, helping to preserve them and just sitting around enthusiastically talking about them. Hugo, in its own way, allows him to accomplish all those film-related gerunds at once and address them to a new audience. I bet in the back of his mind somewhere, he hopes that someone born in 1999 or so sees Hugo and the experience births a new serious film fan, one who goes home and asks his or her parents about seeing a silent movie, wanting to start at the beginning of film history. If we had a title of filmmaking laureate as we do poet laureate, would there be any other American worth nominating? He's our country's film professor. They often pose the question to people about any career they might have, "Would you still do this if you didn't get paid?" I think we know what Marty's answer would be, but how would someone like a Michael Bay answer?With Hugo, Scorsese begins the film moving at a pace equal to the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. Hugo starts leisurely with that overhead shot of Paris, but it picks up speed as it enters the train station and takes off like the famous Copacabana tracking shot in Goodfellas on crystal meth, zooming through those wide corridors packed with people, following Hugo through the innards of the station, sending him up and down ladders and traversing halls lined with pipes exhaling steam. Much of Hugo zips along at this pace when in the station, but Scorsese knows when to slow things down as well. In the production design, I'm sure they purposely built
the set's features to evoke silent films such as the many large mechanisms that run the station's clocks that look straight out of Chaplin's Modern Times and the clocks that reminded me of Harold Lloyd's Safety Last from the beginning, long before Hugo takes Isabelle to see Lloyd's movie and Hugo ends up hanging from a minute hand for real when fleeing the Station Inspector. By this time in his directing career (21 feature films since 1967, not counting his short films, documentaries, music videos, commercials and TV work), Scorsese has employed every filmmaking technique there is except for the 3D he's using for the first time here. It also seems to me that he utilizes more shots from high and low angles in Hugo than he usually does for a single movie. The big question comes down to how he handles the 3D, which puts me in an awkward position since I have nothing to compare it against except those coming attraction trailers. For me at least, I thought it was used very well for the first half-hour or so and isolated moments after that. After about 30 minutes though, I found the 3D to be somewhat exhausting and it wore out its novelty with me. When Hugo reaches its emotional climax, with Méliès embracing his legacy and parts of his films and A Trip to the Moon restored in its entirety, I found the 3D to be a distraction. Having seen that Georges Méliès film, I know it wasn't in 3D, so why was the moon coming toward me? I imagine that entire sequence affects the viewer more emotionally in the 2D prints.
Fortunately, the eventual 3D fatigue didn't sour me on the film itself which I enjoyed overall, thanks not only to Scorsese's still-visible mastery and his right-hand woman, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker and all the other behind-the-scenes talent. Most importantly, Hugo succeeds on the strength of its cast (though why everyone in Paris has a British accent I have no idea). Since the movie rests primarily on the shoulders of young Asa Butterfield, if his casting had been off, they'd been sunk, but he does quite well, holding his own with performers of all different levels of experience. His Hugo and Chloë Grace Moretz's Isabelle make a good team of young amateur detectives and friends who each compensate for something the other lacks. Isabelle's book smarts help their research (and con their way out of a run-in with the Station Inspector) while Hugo introduces Isabelle to the wonders of the movies, which Papa Georges refuses to let her see. Until that point, Isabelle has been the adventurer, but Hugo sneaks her into the theater to see the movie free. "We could get in trouble," she warns Hugo. "That's how you know it's an adventure," Hugo tells her. Moretz truly has proved herself an amazing young actress, putting on a British accent here, playing the young vampire last year in Let Me In and as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's wise-beyond-her-years younger sister in (500) Days of Summer.
Also turning in fine, brief appearances are the previously mentioned Jude Law, Ray Winstone and Helen McCrory as well as Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Emily Mortimer and Christopher Lee playing various inhabitants of the train station. Sacha Baron Cohen provides ample comic relief as the Station Inspector who suffered a wound in World War I that requires a mechanical hinge on one of his legs so that it comes off as sort of an homage to Kenneth Mars' Inspector Kemp in Young Frankenstein. One of Cohen's funniest scenes involves Madame Emilie (De la Tour) trying to get him to show her his best smile so he can talk to Lisette (Mortimer), the girl who sells flowers that he's developed a crush on but is too shy to approach. One other performance worth noting is Michael Stuhlbarg as Rene Tabard, the film professor who wrote a book about Méliès and restores his legacy. I don't know if Scorsese met Stuhlbarg on the set of Boardwalk Empire, which he executive produces and Stuhlbarg gives one of the series' best performances as Arnold Rothstein, or if he saw him first in a completely different role as Larry Gopnik in the Coens' A Serious Man, but Stuhlbarg's chameleon-like ability astonishes.
The credit for what ultimately makes Hugo work as well as it does belongs to Ben Kingsley as Georges Méliès. Kingsley has been excellent for a long time in many roles since he first captured our attention in 1982's Gandhi, showing he's equally adept in all genres and time periods in the years since. His work in Hugo may be his best since his incomparable turn in Sexy Beast, though the two parts couldn't be more different. There is neither flash nor fire in his Méliès, but you see the loss lurking beneath the man's surface as well as the joy in flashbacks to his filmmaking days. Kingsley's acting stands out better in 3D than all the other effects in Hugo combined.
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Labels: 10s, Boardwalk Empire, Books, Cameron, Chaplin, Coens, Fiction, Gordon-Levitt, Hawks, Kingsley, Larry David, Nicholson, Scorsese, Selznick, Spielberg, Star Wars, Tim Burton, Woody
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Monday, August 08, 2011
Nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me
By Edward Copeland
Sometimes you have to wonder what made some of the pre-Code Hollywood classics such as Night Nurse, which turns 80 years old today, so shocking. Sure, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell spend an inordinate amount of time in various states of undress, but the subject matter doesn't approach the lurid level of a Baby Face (also with Stanwyck) or Red-Headed Woman with Jean Harlow. Maybe it's because even then it raised questions about the motives of some involved in the health care system or the practice of medicine. Whatever the reason, what's most important about Night Nurse is that just 20 years shy of being a century old, it remains a damn good movie.
Directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Night Nurse begins in an almost comic tone before it takes a suspenseful turn in its second half. Wellman brings a lot of nice touches to the film visually. It opens from the point-of-view of an ambulance speeding through city streets on its way to a hospital's emergency's room.
Ambulance is spelled in reverse inside the driver's window. They were aiming to be reversed as many used to be so they would read correctly in other vehicles' rear-view mirrors, only they have it backward and it's written forward on the front of the ambulance. As the injured man is unloaded, the orderly guesses correctly that he's been in a car wreck. "Cement truck hit one of those Baby Austins," the ambulance driver tells him as they wheel him into the hospital. The orderly comments that you'd never catch him in one of those little cars, but the ambulance driver corrects him that the injured man was driving the cement truck. As they move through the hall, the pass a nervous father-to-be letting go of his wife's hand as she heads to the delivery room. A nurse places a screen around another man in the crowded ward and a woman asks her, "Why can't my son have a screen?" The nurse explains that it's against the rules. The woman points out that she just placed one around the other man and the nurse explains that's because that man is dying.
The camera finally moves past all the chaos as we see sharp dark shoes entering the office of Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis), the superintendent of nurses to apply for a nursing job. Her name is Lora Hart and she's played by the great Barbara Stanwyck. Miss Dillon is a bit of a harridan, barely taking her eyes off what she's doing to give Lora much attention. Her education doesn't impress her and she asks her why in the world she would want to be a nurse. Lora tries not to laugh as she notices that the woman has a habit of making a grotesque throat-clearing sound ever few seconds. "Nursing people has always seemed liked a second nature to me," Lora tells the superintendent of nurses, but she seems less than impressed and dismisses her out of hand. As Lora marches out of the woman's office, she makes certain to stop at the door and clear her throat with a smile before she leaves.
When she's exiting the hospital, a preoccupied man bumps into her, spilling the contents of Lora's purse and falling on his ass. Lora takes the stance that he was trying to be fresh with her, but he gets up and reassures her that isn't the case. He introduces himself as Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger) and asks why she was
there. She tells him she had hoped to get a job as a nurse, but that Miss Dillon didn't seem interested. Bell offers to take her back and asks her name. When she shares that her name is Lora Hart, Bell replies, "Hart — that's a good name for a nurse." Lora, escorted by Dr. Bell, returns to Miss Dillon's office. When she sees Lora with the doctor, the superintendent gets tongue-tied, but Bell doesn't give Dillon much of a chance to say anything anyway, just tells her to treat Miss Hart well and find a place for her and perhaps she can help improve things around then. He wishes Lora good luck and departs, leaving her to have a real interview with Miss Dillon. While Miss Dillon's attitude toward Lora improves slightly, mainly she wants to know why she didn't tell her before that she was acquainted with Dr. Bell. She explains that she will begin work as a probationary nurse, which means she will live in a dorm and have a curfew (in bed with lights out by 10). Because she'll just be on probation on first, she must pay strict attention to the rules or she could be let go. "Rules mean something — you'll be told about them later," Miss Dillon tells her.The superintendent sees another probationary nurse passing and calls out, "Maloney." Maloney (Joan Blondell) enters and Miss Wilson introduces her to Lora and says since Maloney (the film never gives her a first name,
just the initial B.) doesn't have a roommate, she should get Lora a uniform and show her the ropes. At first, Maloney isn't very friendly, seeing any new probationary nurse as competition, even handing her a uniform several sizes too large at first, but soon the girls hit it off and Maloney warns her about the different types of men to watch out for, such as interns. Just as she says that, an intern named Eagan (Edward Nugent) sticks his head in the dressing room and acts generally obnoxious. Maloney makes no attempt to hide her disdain. "Sometimes I don't like you, Maloney," Eagan tells her. "I wish I could find a way to make that permanent," she replies. What do you say newcomer?" he asks Lora. "Two-nothin' in favor of the lady," Lora concludes. Eagan knows when he's licked and leaves. "Take my advice and stay away from interns," Maloney reiterates. "They're like cancer. The disease you know, but there ain't no cure."It must be said that while Night Nurse would barely be classified as a B picture by most at the time it was made, the movie not only surpasses that level in terms of quality, but in Wellman's distinctive touches and Barney McGill's cinematography. For instance, in one particularly effective sequence, Maloney and Lora must assist a surgery as one of their final tasks before they can take the oath and be full-fledged nurses. Lora, as we will learn, can be a bit skittish (though the growth of her strength marks the journey of both her character and the film). Maloney warns her that if she faints or messes up, she's done so hang on. They stage the scene in a large operating theater and Wellman films most of the sequence in overhead shots. The surgery doesn't go well and there's blood as the surgeon's try to save the man. Lora almost buckles, but Maloney gives her her hand. As the man dies, they show a series of almost ritualistic shots as the body gets slowly covered. The OR clears out but Lora lingers behind, waiting until the room has emptied to collapse to the floor which Wellman again captures in an overhead shot.
What's interesting is that while William A. Wellman had a reputation prior to Night Nurse (he did direct Oscar's first best picture (Wings) after all and would go on to make many more notable films), the other members of the creative team really didn't have that much else of note on their filmographies. McGill's only other significant films as a d.p. were Svengali starring John Barrymore and Michael Curtiz's The Cabin in the Cotton that kick-started Bette Davis' career. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Dora Macy (a pen name used by writer Grace Perkins) and written by Oliver H.P. Garrett who was prolific but only made noise as a co-writer on Manhattan Melodrama (with Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Duel in the Sun (with David O. Selznick and uncredited work by Ben Hecht) and Dead Reckoning (with four other men). On Night Nurse, additional dialogue was credited to Charles Kenyon, who was just as prolific as Garrett. His most recognizable credits were helping to adapt Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 and Robert Sherwood's play The Petrified Forest in 1936. Somehow though these people pooled together to produce crackling dialogue, memorable images and efficient storytelling out of a movie that most viewed as filler. It's a minor miracle.
Perhaps what makes Night Nurse one of those daring pre-Code pictures is that, while it never shows Lora or Maloney leading a loose lifestyle, the young single gals do sneak out of the dorm and come back in after curfew drunk. Presumably Maloney has dragged Lora out on a manhunting expedition since what type of mate
to pursue tends to be all Maloney talks about. In addition to interns being a no-no, she warns against doctors as well, saying that you'd just end up running their office while they chase other women. As for patients, for some reason Maloney thinks that "appendicitis cases are best." However, for Maloney, only one male is ideal. "There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough!" she says. "Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life and you'll be getting somewhere." Those conversations are for another time. Right now, the pie-eyed pals are more concerned with getting undressed
in the dark and climbing into bed without tipping off Miss Dillon that they'd broken curfew. That plan goes bust thanks to Eagan, who left a surprise under Lora's blanket — a skeleton from the anatomy class that causes Lora to let out a shriek. Maloney tells her to hurry and get under the covers and act asleep, in case Dillon comes in. Lora doesn't want to be that close to the bones, but she does it. Sure enough, Miss Dillon comes in and flips the lights on. Maloney tries to fake that she just woke them up but the superintendent throws back the blanket and exclaims, "I thought so" as she sees that Maloney still has part of her clothing on. The girls fear that a firing is coming, but instead as punishment Dillon assigns them to the night shift working with the worst cases that come in off the streets: drunks, beatings, etc. As she leaves them to get some sleep, Eagan drops by to taunt them and they yell at him. Lora continues to lack the nerve to sleep where the skeleton was, so Maloney lets her crawl into bed with her for the night.The "punishment" that Miss Dillon gives Lara and Maloney actually only serves to forward the plot. They only work there long enough to meet a new character who will play an important role going forward (and it's neither the drunk nor the intern helping to treat those coming in for help). A sharp-dressed man comes
staggering in, having lost some blood. Lora gets to work patching him up which necessitates cutting his shirt. "Hey! That's silk!" the man (Ben Lyon) objects. "That's how I knew you were a bootlegger," Lora tells him, but then she realizes his injury is a bullet wound. "That looks like it's a bullet wound!" Lora says. "Well, it's a cinch it's not a vaccination mark," he replies. By law, nurses are required to report all bullet wounds to the police, but the man begs her not to do it. Lora finds herself torn because she likes this nameless bootlegger. Maloney comes up and spots the bullet wound and tells them they have to report it — they can't risk their jobs before they even officially start them. "Maybe 56 bucks a week isn't much but it's 56 bucks," Maloney says. Eventually, Maloney gives in and she and Lora fix the bootlegger up and keep his secret. After that is when the operating room test comes and Lora and Maloney pass. The pals join the other probies and take the Florence Nightingale Pledge and become full-fledged nurses."I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care."
It's at this point that Night Nurse makes its pivot. Aside from the great opening, when we saw anonymous characters doing their work, Lora and Maloney patching up the bootlegger and the OR scene, we've really witnessed little in the way of the practice of medicine. That pledge the newly minted nurses took (at least as far as Lora is concerned — aside from a couple of brief appearances by Maloney, Joan Blondell mostly vanishes from the film, unfortunately) means something to them, It wasn't just a line that Lora was trying to pull on Miss Dillon when she told her that "nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me." Skittishness over
skeletons and blood aside, Lora has only grown stronger and she will need that strength for what she confronts next. At the hospital, she had assisted Dr. Bell in the treatment of two sick little girls, Desney and Nanny Richey (Betty Jane Graham, Marcia Mae Jones). For some reason though, their widowed mother (Charlotte Merriam) removed Bell from the case and took them home for
treatment there under a Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) and an ever-rotating staff of nurses who keep quitting or getting fired. Maloney currently holds the daytime shift and when the latest night nurse exits, Lora gets the job and hits it off with the children who are ecstatic, to their detriment, one falling to the floor in weakness over the excitement. The housekeeper Mrs. Maxwell (Blanche Frederici) enters to put a stop to it. Lora had been warned to be wary of the household staff, particularly Nick the chauffeur (Clark Gable, who got the role which originally was intended for James Cagney. However, when The Public Enemy hit so big earlier in 1931, the studio and Cagney agreed he shouldn't play such a small role as a hood now). Gable gets the most unintentionally funny introductions in the movie (or just about any movie). After Lora had been specifically warned about "Nick the chauffeur," when she encounters him and asks who he is he actually says in complete monotone, "I'm Nick — the chauffeur." The way that moment plays could only have been sillier if it had been followed by ominous organ music.
Lora attempts to find Mrs. Richey somewhere within the mansion to tell her what dire straits her children are in and finds that she appears to be either drunk or passed out 24 hours a day, usually on the arm of her equally inebriated boyfriend Mack (Walter McGrail). Often, the place overflows with many partying friends in a scene of bacchanalia. When Mrs. Richey nods off one time, Mack makes moves on Lora should Lora parries his pawing fairly well, but the first time she meets Nick is when he shows up and lays Mack out with a punch. Lora and Nick don't maintain a friendly relationship for long as she tells him she's calling a doctor. He warns her not to unless Dr. Ranger has given her orders to that effect. She ignores him and proceeds to the phone. Nick shouts that he runs this place, but Lora gets someone on the line so Nick knocks her out and carries her unconscious into another room.
The next day, Lora goes to see this Dr. Ranger to report what's going on, but it soon becomes clear to her that he's not particularly interested in the welfare of the children and she puts together what must be going on: The children must have a trust fund that will pass on to their tipsy mother if they die and they'll have Nick marry her and he and the doctor will steal the fortune. She threatens to report Ranger to the authorities. He
seems unconcerned, telling her she has no proof and to make such allegations will just end her career. Lora storms out and goes to see Dr. Bell who, to her surprise, agrees with everything she says but doesn't want to lift a finger to help her either since, even though he's long had suspicions about Ranger, "he is a colleague." Not much has changed in 80 years: Doctors always protect one another no matter how bad they know the other doctor is. Bell tries to put his inability to report Ranger off on "ethics." This really sets Lora off. "Oh, ethic, ethics. That's all I've heard in this business. Isn't there any humanity left? Aren't there any ethics about letting little babies be murdered?" she yells at him. Bell advises that if she really wants to help the children, she should go back and apologize to Ranger so she can keep working. Lora agrees, but first she stops for a soda and happens to run into the bootlegger and tells him her story. When he hears what Nick did, he offers to talk to a couple of guys to take care of him. Lora learns his name is Mortie and he promises that he's out of the bootlegging business now, but he agrees to help her anyway he can. The bootlegger would be more ethical than the doctors.Now, I won't tell you how Night Nurse resolves itself, but it packs so much into its running time that it's damn remarkable it all got squeezed in. Logically, Night Nurse shouldn't be the gem that it is, but lightning struck. Not the type that wins awards but the more important type of electricity — bolts that go off in one time period and continue to reverberate decades later. I do have to share a couple of other favorite moments before I wrap it up though. Wellman put so much effort into this programmer with the different way he set up shots and another of my favorites is the perspective he uses when Mack comes on to Lora again and she lays him out with a punch of her own. It almost looks like 3-D. Then, for comedy, we get to see Mack crawl on the floor to take refuge behind the bar.
Soon after that, Lora tries to physically drag Mrs. Richey so she can see how her daughter is but the drunken women isn't cooperating. Lora even drags her by the throat at one point until Mrs. Richey finally collapses on the floor, passed out. Lora tosses a bucket of ice water on her trying to wake her up to no avail. As she walks away, Lora almost give us some pre-Code profanity as she mutters, "You mothers." The young Stanwyck amazes and this was only her third year making movies and she also scored with another brilliant turn in 1931 in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman — and so many more and greater performances were still on the way.
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Labels: 30s, Bette, Blondell, Cagney, Capra, Curtiz, Gable, Harlow, Hecht, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Selznick, Shakespeare, Stanwyck, Wellman
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
In awe of such a thing as Welles himself
By Edward Copeland
Few filmmakers have as an eclectic resume as Richard Linklater has developed over the years, most often with positive results, so it's great to see him try another period piece with Me and Orson Welles, particularly after the unfair flailing The Newton Boys received. This 2009 release seemed to escape much notice aside for a brief Oscar push for supporting actor for Christian McKay as Welles and that's a shame, because it's a very good film that deserved more attention.
Zac Efron, acquitting himself quite nicely, stars as high school student Richard Samuels who, while playing drums outside the infamous Mercury Theatre in 1937, meets the famed wunderkind himself and charms Welles enough that he offers Richard a small role in the troupe's currently rehearsing production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The daydreaming Richard, whose drawn to all artistic bents, especially acting, is awestruck and anxiously accepts despite the limited time until the opening date and the lack of pay. If his school suffers, he feels that's a small price to pay for working alongside Welles.
Richard also find himself falling for something besides the theater: Welles' assistant who practically runs the theater, Sonja (Claire Danes), an ambitious young woman who is hoping that her nonstop devotion to Orson will lead to an introduction to David O. Selznick, prepping a film version of Gone With the Wind at the time. All the horny young men in the theater company lust for Sonja, but consider her a bit of a cold fish and strike out in their attempts to land her, but the minor Richard actually finds a bit of luck in that area.
The period details truly make the film breathe and the backstage drama energizes the story, especially thanks to McKay's pitch-perfect performance as Welles, giving him the right mix of genius, ego and asshole. It's truly impressive that Efron holds his own so well.
The large ensemble also does well. It took until the end credits, which I recommend that everyone stay for because they are fun, that it is Eddie Marsan from Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky playing John Houseman. With an actor who was as distinctive as Houseman, Marsan goes in the opposite direction than McKay and doesn't attempt imitation. He just plays the role. There also is fine work from Ben Chaplin, Zoe Kazan, James Tupper and Leo Bill. (In case you don't catch it in the film, the latter two are playing Joseph Cotten and Norman Lloyd.)
Though I have liked almost every film Linklater has made (I refuse to see The Bad News Bears remake), Me and Orson Welles works so well on every conceivable level that I believe it's his best film since Dazed and Confused and he's made some very good films since then. It not only tells a wonderful story with the script by Holly Gent Palmo & Vincent Palmo based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, its atmospherics and general sense of the importance of all arts to life really delivers an important message at a vital time.
The production design by Laurence Doman, cinematography by Dick Pope and costumes by Nic Ede all lend credibility to the film's gorgeous depiction of 1937 New York. Simply put, it is by far the most beautiful film Linklater has yet made.
Still, if you only watch Me and Orson Welles for one reason, that should be for Christian McKay's brilliant turn as Welles. He resembles the actor-writer-director at a young age and gives a resonating performance that goes beyond mere impersonation.
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Labels: 00s, Linklater, Selznick, Shakespeare, Welles
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Monday, August 16, 2010
Hitchcock's best 1940 film
To those forthright ones who early saw the clouds of war while many of us at home were seeing rainbows....
To those clear-headed ones who now stand like recording angels among the dead and dying....
To the Foreign Correspondents--
this motion picture is dedicated.
By Edward Copeland
Don't get me wrong: Rebecca is a great film, but the wrong Alfred Hitchcock film that was nominated for the Oscar for best picture of 1940 won. His other nominated film, Foreign Correspondent, which turns 70 today, is the better film in my opinion. Of course, the fact that Hitch had TWO films up for best picture that year and still lost best director makes the fact he never won that prize a bigger outrage.
Often, if you just mention the title Foreign Correspondent, even Hitchcock fans might not recognize it as one of his films, let alone one of his classics. Even though it managed a none-too-shabby six Oscar
nominations, it seems to have been somehow lost in the Hitchcock canon. It's easy to see how that's possible when you are just one of the numerous great films directed by perhaps the most famous brand-name director of all time, but that doesn't mean the fate is a deserved one. With a cast led by Joel McCrea, Herbert Marshall, Laraine Day and George Sanders, several memorable Hitchcock setpieces and a screenplay that almost invents the screwball suspense genre thanks to additional dialogue work by Robert Benchley (who also plays a role), Foreign Correspondent has earned a place in the upper echelon of Hitchcock films and in the 1940 film you can spot the templates for things the Master of Suspense will use again in some of his more revered films such as Lifeboat and, especially, North By Northwest. Foreign Correspondent is hardly a rough draft and the later films aren't remotely retreads. Foreign Correspondent stands marvelously, wonderfully on its own and if it's a Hitchcock that you've missed somehow, I'd stopped reading now and consider this your spoiler warning. Even the photos will give things away.
At the film's outset (following the credits), it would be understandable if a viewer thinks a comedy is afoot because it takes awhile for the intrigue to rear its head. For film buffs who might have missed Foreign Correspondent, it might seem even more like that as they see future Preston Sturges lead Joel McCrea and Herbert Marshall, star of early Lubitsch gem Trouble in Paradise, effortlessly emoting the script's snappy dialogue in the scene set at the New York Morning Globe where John Jones (McCrea) works as a reporter. We enter the scene at the Globe as its editor, Powers, (Harry Davenport) has grown weary of the lack of news on the looming European war clouds from Stebbins, his longtime foreign correspondent based in London (played by Benchley himself once we meet him). "Foreign correspondent! I could get more news out of Europe looking in a crystal ball," Powers complains before inviting
Jones into his office, at first gives him the mistaken impression that he's being fired but Powers says no, he has something else in mind. "Give me an expense account and I'll cover anything," Jones replies. Powers reveals his plan to make Jones his new man in Europe. Jones says he knows nothing on the subject, but he can start reading, but his editor insists that isn't necessary. "I like you just as you are, Mr. Jones. What Europe needs is a fresh, unused mind." What Jones does need, Powers decides, is a name with a bit more panache so he gives him the moniker of Huntley Haverstock. The re-naming is witnessed by an important visitor: Stephen Fisher (Marshall), the head of an international peace organization trying to stave off war. "It's really very exciting being present at the christening of an American newspaper correspondent," Fisher says. "Shouldn't we break a bottle of champagne or something?" As the film unfolds, Fisher will suggest much worse.
Though the new job will send Jones/Haverstock to London and later to Holland, this definitely was one of Hitchcock's Hollywood's films. David O. Selznick loaned him out after Rebecca and all the foreign locales were faked in California. Upon Jones' arrival in "London" he's greeted by the Globe's longtime foreign correspondent, the lush extraordinaire Stebbins (Benchley's first appearance), who tries to give Jones a quick primer on how to do the job which, as far as Stebbins is concerned, is doing as little real work as possible while appearing to do so. He explains the art of sending and receiving messages to New York. "They love to cable from New York. It makes them think that you're working for them," he tells Jones as they belly up to a bar. Jones orders a scotch and soda while Stebbins surprises him by ordering milk. "Yeah, I'm on the wagon. I went to the doctor today to see about these jitters I got, and he said it was the wagon for a month, or a whole new set of organs," Stebbins tells Jones. "I can't afford a whole new set of organs." The first assignment Jones gets is to attend a speech by an important diplomat named Van Meer (Oscar nominee Albert Basserman) at a lunch sponsored by Fisher's peace group.
As Jones makes his way to the luncheon speech, by coincidence, he runs into Van Meer and the diplomat offers him a ride to the event and Jones sees it as an opportunity to interview Van Meer ahead of time. Unfortunately, Van Meer is easily distracted and tends to wander off subject. Once they arrive at the site of the luncheon, the film begins to make its transition from nearly all comedy to thriller with comedic touches. First, Jones tries to put the moves on a young woman (Day) before the luncheon without much luck only to learn once the speech is set to begin that for some mysterious reason Van Meer won't be delivering his speech, news delivered by Stephen Fisher, who introduces in his place his daughter Carol, who is of course the woman Jones
was hitting on and who was none too impressed by him. Among the points she makes in her "peace" speech is that "I think the world has been run long enough by well-meaning professionals. We might give the amateurs a chance now." Jones' New York bosses aren't happy to hear that he missed Van Meer and tell him to head off to Amsterdam, where Van Meer has been scheduled to speak at an important conference on the peace movement, sponsored, of course, by Stephen Fisher. The newly minted foreign correspondent gets ready to go. He's also curious to meet Van Meer again to find out what happened so suddenly between their car ride and the luncheon that forced him to cancel his London speech.
From "Holland" on, Foreign Correspondent nearly becomes one long chase, beginning with one of Hitchcock's most memorable sequences. It begins on the steps of an important-looking building where the conference is being held. A downpour of rain is drenching the spectators, including Jones, who runs into Stephen Fisher, who tells him he's heading back to London but other members of his organization will be there.
Jones continues his wet vigil for Van Meer when the diplomat finally arrives. Jones rushes up to greet him, but is confused when Van Meer shows no sign of recognizing him.
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A photographer asks for a photo, only the flash he makes isn't just from his camera but the gun he conceals as he assassinates Van Meer in a shot that's reminiscent of the shot from Eisenstein's Potemkin.
Jones and the authorities try to capture the killer who escapes in the sea of umbrellas before finally reappearing on the street and dodging Jones' pursuit though a throng of vehicles before the assassin hooks up with his getaway car.
Fortunately, Jones finds a car of his own to continue to pursuit and meets a fellow reporter Scott ffolliott (George Sanders, another wizard with snappy dialogue) and, surprisingly, Carol Fisher. Amidst the thrill of the chase, Jones admits he doesn't get Scott's last name with its two lower case Fs at the beginning, but Scott explains that one of his ancestors was beheaded by Henry VIII and his wife dropped the capital letter to commemorate it. The two reporters and the daughter of the peace commission's leader head the police pursuit of the killer throughout Holland, including a small village where a poor man keeps attempting to cross the street with a pitcher only to be stopped time and time again by speeding vehicles before finally giving up and going back inside. Even after the film's first scene of violence and the beginning of the suspense side of its story, there's still time for a sight gag.
The strangest thing happens during the frenzied pursuit though. As Scott, Jones and Carol speed across the countryside, complete with the country's trademark windmills, the assassin's car vanishes, apparently into thin air. The trio stops by one of the windmills trying to figure out how the bad guys possibly could have escaped, noticing an airplane circling overhead. Surely they couldn't have driven that high, they surmise. When the authorities arrive, they decide to continue the pursuit even though they now are chasing a phantom car. As Johnny continues to be puzzled, a strong wind blows off his hat, landing it into a pool of water, giving Scott and Carol a good
laugh but allowing Jones to notice something amiss about the windmill they are standing near: It's blowing in a different direction than all of the other windmills in the immediate vicinity. Jones points out his finding to Scott and Carol and feels it warrants further investigation. He circles to the back of the windmill and unbolts a wooden garage door and, sure enough, there sits the vanished escape vehicle. He tells his compatriots of his find and his suspicion, as they watch the windmill change directions again, that it is a signal for the plane to land. He decides to proceed into the windmill to see what he can find and urges Scott and Carol to go catch up with the police and bring them back. Scott and Carol depart in the car and Jones proceeds carefully inside the windmill, uncertain of what dangers might await him inside. The bad guys may have had time to hide their getaway car, but surely they haven't had time to escape entirely, so the green foreign correspondent risks his life and limbs to enter alone. It's no longer a story that he's simply reporting; it's a mystery he's determined to solve.
Sure enough, Jones does discover the assassin as well as other men discussing some vague but serious-sounding matters. Realizing that it's best that he not be discovered, at least until Scott and Carol return with the police, Jones carefully slinks around the windmill's innards, a maze of stairs, to try to keep himself out of sight of Van Meer's killer and his conspirators. Luck seems to be on Jones' side as he's able to make it up a stone stairway that not only keeps him hidden but also allows a good look at the men below and a chance to hear more of their conversation. He can't quite make sense out of their discussions, but it's definitely about the impending war and Van
Meer's role as an impediment to the conflict. However, the biggest surprise for Jones is yet to come. As he climbs further up the stairway, he finds a door and figures a room would make for a much more secure hiding place from the goons below to await the arrival of the authorities. He just has to hope they get there in time before the conspirators make their escape. When he opens the door, he's surprised to be greeted by a familiar voice — a voice belonging to a man whose life he saw silenced earlier in the day. It's a very much alive Van Meer. He explains the man Jones saw killed was an impostor. (Don't stop to think too hard about who in the world would volunteer for that assignment?) The men who are doing this are trying to allow the war since he is one of the only people who knows a secret clause to a peace treaty that would prevent it and it's firmly esconsced inside his head. Audience, meet this movie's MacGuffin.
Van Meer explains to Jones that the fake assassination/kidnapping is in the hopes that his "death" would speed the process to war and they are going to keep holding him hostage until he tells them what he wants to know. Unfortunately, Jones realizes too late that his hiding place is that last place that he should be as they come to fetch Van Meer for his trip and knock Jones unconscious. Later, he comes to and makes his way outside when Scott, Carol and the police finally return. He relays his incredible tale, but the police are skeptical. They go back into the windmill, but of course it's empty, though they find what appears to be a vagrant in the room that used to be where Van Meer was being held. Jones figures perhaps the car still will be there, but it's gone too and the police leave, though Scott notices the supposed vagrant dirtying himself up with soil when no one is looking to make his story seem more
realistic. What really sets Foreign Correspondent apart from other Hitchcock films is that, though all the usual elements are there in addition with a heavier dose of comedy than usual, it's really a rarity to take its fictional story but set it against the backdrop of very real world events at the time. He's creating well-crafted escapist fare with the bad guys pursuing a pointless article pertaining to a very real war, as if there would have been magic words contained in a peace proposal that would have convinced Hitler to give up his plans. If you think about it too hard, it could be seen as offensive, but despite the real war clouds in the background and even actual mentions of Hitler and in the film's spectacular climax to come, German warships, it's all played on a level that keeps it fun without losing the very real worries of 1940. Not in the same specific way but similarly, it resembles Ian McKellen's spectacular Richard III that reimagines Shakespeare's tale in 1930s England.The next sequence seems as if it could have been taken directly from North By Northwest. As Jones, returns to his hotel, dejected that no one seems to believe his fantastic tale and determined to rescue Van Meer
before he's killed for real, he gets two unexpected guests. Men claiming to be from the police say that their chief would like him to come down to headquarters to recount his tale again, because they believe him. Since one of the biggest problems getting in Jones' way has been the language barrier, he asks if the chief speaks English. "We all speak English here," one of the men replies. "More than I can say for the people in my country," Jones retorts, but the answer ie enough for him to smell the rat and he get them to let him to go the bathroom to tidy up a bit. He starts the tub and proceeds to climb out the window and scale the ledge, knocking out part of the hotel's sign so it reads: HOT EUROPE. When he's able to get into another hotel room, it ends up being Carol Fisher's. She's still hostile, but she buys his story and they cook up a multitude of diversions to retrieve his clothes (he's in a bathrobe), stymie the fake cops and escape the hotel.Jones and Carol decide perhaps the best course of action is to return to London and see what they can learn there and tell her father about Van Meer being alive, though the point may be moot since war has been officially declared. Jones wires his paper and tells them not to write about Van Meer's assassination, but he'll give them more when he can confirm it. With no other way out, the two are forced to buy cold deck seats on a ship sailing to London. One of the things about old movies that always cracks me up, even in good ones, is the speed in which people declare their love for one another or propose marriage. Since a love story is about the last thing Hitch has on his mind, he gets it out of the way so quickly, it's funny. As the pair shiver under blankets on their chaisse lounges, the following dialogue takes place:
JONES: I'm in love with you and I want to marry you.
CAROL: I'm in love with you and I want to marry you.
JONES: Hmmm...that cuts down our love scene quite a bit, doesn't it?
Back in London, they head over to Carol's father's place, but Jones finds a nasty surprise, one that forces him to keep his mouth shut: Stephen Fisher is meeting with one of the men who was holding Van Meer at the
windmill. Carol and Jones convince Fisher to let the man wait in another room for a minute or two to finish their business so they can speak. After the man leaves, they spill the tale of the man being involved in Van Meer's kidnapping and that the assassination was a fake. Fisher expresses shock, understandably, then decides he better see to the man in order not to arouse his suspicions. Once he enters the other room what many viewers might have suspected is made clear as Fisher asks why Jones wasn't taken care of in Holland. The man has no answers, but suggests a solution: A man named Rowley (played by none other than good old Kris Kringle himself, Edmund Gwenn) who acts as a bodyguard but really makes certain the person he's protecting gets killed "accidentally." When Fisher returns to his daughter and Jones, they demand to know why he didn't call the authorities, but he says he was afraid if he did, it would mean Van Meer's death. However, Jones' life might certainly be in danger so Fisher recommends Rowley as a bodyguard.This sets in course another of Hitchcock's best suspense sequences of the film as the seemingly harmless Rowley escorts Jones around London, including an early push into oncoming traffic which fails to kill
the reporter who, understandably, wonders what he was doing. Rowley tells him he was saving his life: If he hadn't pushed him between the vehicles, a different car would've nailed him. Jones buys it and, for some reason, agrees to Rowley's suggestion that they check out the ideal view from the top of a cathedral. Rowley gets antsy as other visitors linger and show up, some deciding to take the stairs, others the lift. Jones has seen about enough, but Rowley doesn't want him to miss a certain sight and he finally makes his move, rushing to shove Jones out the opening. Unfortunately, the lift arrives and distracts Jones at just the right moment leaving Rowley to take the fatal fall instead. Back at the office with Stebbins and Scott, Jones said something told him not to trust a bodyguard that Stephen Fisher suggested, but he didn't want to believe it. Scott tells him that he's been on to Fisher's involvement for months and they have to move fast to find Van Meer and finger Fisher. "I'm in love with a girl, and I'm going to help hang her father," Jones sighs.
Instead of synopsizing what's left, I just want to single out the other great Hitchcock sequence in Foreign Correspondent, a setpiece that remains amazing in this day of CGI and digital effects. Jones, Scott, Carol and Stephen Fisher all happen to be flying to New York on the same plane (aware of each other, though in different cabins). An airline official makes his way through the cabin to hand out some wires and Fisher spots one for Scott and takes it and sees that it says that authorities will be arresting Fiaher upon landing. He says something to the effect that he will be having to leave the flight early and before too long a German battleship in the vicinity opens fire on the plane. It never shows Fisher signaling them, but the implication is that somehow he did. The depiction of the attack and the plane crash that follows truly is astounding, especially considering this is a 70-year-old movie. It ranks with the plane crash in Cast Away that would come after 60 years of technological advancements. It also foreshadows to some extent parts of Lifeboat to come from Hitchcock four years later.
Now, I'm sure some will dispute my assertion that Foreign Correspondent bests Rebecca, but I stand behind my claim. If given a choice between watching one or the other, I'll always opt for Foreign Correspondent (of course there are countless other Hitchcocks I'd grab before either first). The main problem that prevents Foreign Correspondent from being a complete masterwork is its close connection to the reality of that time. Sure, the bad guys in the movie don't get away with their crimes, but their war still goes on and that war is World War II, so in a way they do succeed and millions pay a deadly price. Because of that reality, there is a final scene that does seem tacked on where "Huntley Haverstock" speaks to radio listeners as bombs rain down on London. A blackout is called and he and Carol are urged to call off the broadcast and get to a shelter, but Carol says they are listening in America, so Jones wings it.
"OK, we'll tell 'em, then. I can't read the rest of the speech I had, because the lights have gone out, so I'll just have to talk off the cuff. All that noise you hear isn't static — it's death, coming to London. Yes, they're coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don't tune me out, hang on a while — this is a big story, and you're part of it. It's too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come...as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they're the only lights left in the world!"
It still has a ring of power and certainly it resonated even more strongly during the war years, but it comes off as a bit startling after the frivolity and suspenseful entertainment we've enjoyed up until that moment. Still, it's not enough to cast a pall over all that came before it — and all that came before it remains superb.
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Labels: 40s, Hitchcock, Joel McCrea, Lubitsch, Movie Tributes, Oscars, P. Sturges, Sanders, Selznick, Shakespeare
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