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Reviews
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Brilliantly Exploits An Instinctual, Primeval Fear
When this production was about to be released late in 1974, there was plenty of hype about it; a TV short about the dangerous conditions of its making, articles in the trades about the unique deal struck up by two major studios to co-produce it (common now; then unheard of), yet when I saw it, the very day it premiered in my city, it did not disappoint. This is the Gone with the Wind of disaster pictures. Even at the time, I felt there were things wrong with The Posiedon Adventure and Earthquake; the former had its biggest scene at the beginning and the annoying, trashy cop-hooker couple, the latter had a stupid collection of subplots which you could tell some the actors themselves were bored with.
Not the Towering Inferno. The style and the tremendous scale of this film still inspire awe in me. The spacious interiors of the offices and penthouse have been criticized as cheesy; they weren't on the big screen then and sure, they were 60s-looking but that just cued me to the old Hollywood 'Scope vibe. For genuinely cheesy art direction, please report to Earthquake.
Most important, the primeval human fear of being burned alive is at the heart of the plot. Even now, when I read about this happening to someone it makes me shiver. Oddly, this obvious fact hasn't been often commented upon by many commentators, yet it is what gives the movie its nightmarish kick.
SPOILERS: Besides having the largest cast of major stars ever in one epic motion picture (something never duplicated to this day), it has so many scenes that stay in the memory, like Paul Newman, knocked unconscious by an explosion in a staircase zillions of stories up, sliding down the tangled wreckage to certain doom until he recovers just in time.
The pyrotechnics reach their apex at the end, and that's breathtaking. But to many, the most memorable sequence occurs between Robert Wagner and his secretary Susan Flannery, trapped in an inner office after a tryst. Here far deeper emotions are plumbed. Trysts in offices are not unknown to us, but to end up being killed as an indirect result of it, geez
Later, after Wagner has gone out into the inferno in a futile effort to get help, Flannery, who has seen what immediately happens to him, slams the office door and desperately tries to avoid the roaring flames for a few more minutes. We are made to identify with her and her reactions. Like we might be, Flannery is very frightened but still seems able (barely) to keep her head. However, we can sense she knows that like her lover she's going to die very soon. Which she does, in a graphic, terrible manner.
The horror of this scene is hard to shake off. The nature of this entire episode may be lurid, but the way it is handled lifts it to another plane.
This gets a 10/10. I almost lowered it to 9/10 due to some minor technical and logical flaws noted by other commentators. But I realized it didn't matter.
Manhattan Tower (1932)
Obscure but good
Surprisingly entertaining B-movie about intertwined lives during a typical day in a downtown office tower. The cast is attractive, and there's a suitably despicable villain who gets what he deserves. Starts out looking like it's going to be a Grand Hotel knock-off but only one story is covered. Later a hint of the bank run of American Madness is thrown in sketchily. Like other such contemporary lower case pictures with similar styles & themes (such as Hotel Continental from the same year, which really IS a Grand Hotel knock-off), it has no street exteriors --saving money -- and moves satisfyingly fast with second-tier actors showing their stuff. But this one is distinguished by a really unusual scene-changing device making use of the skyscraper's vertical architecture really well. Made by a no-name company with a Gower Gulch list of techs and creative talent behind the camera.
I had no idea this type of production could be so good.
Klondike (1932)
Veteran Cast Makes It Work
Solid little Monogram drama with very original story and denouement. Lyle Talbot, who would appear in anything, even a notorious Edward Wood picture, stars with considerable intelligence and sincerity. Hard-working Thelma Todd has a serious role and both leads are appealing together. Henry B. Walthall (another veteran who didn't know how to retire) supports, as does Gabby Hayes and Jason Robards Sr.
The start is a little shaky, with some awkward staging, but after it gets into its stride I can say that this has much to recommend it. The attitude of Klondike's cast, and its out-of-the-rut story, is what makes it all work.
Madam Satan (1930)
Ridiculous Misfire
A terrible, lavish, early talkie from Cecil B. DeMille, that I couldn't make heads or tails of until I saw his 1925 melodrama The Golden Bed. Madame Satan in reality was DeMille's last foray into domestic comedy-drama among the very rich, a theme he had been doing pretty consistently since 1918. Film buffs tend to overlook that genrespeaking for myself, it all seems too gauche and mediocre to take time evaluatingand look at the big epics. But there they are: gobs of money made titillating naïve Jazz Age audiences with supposed glimpses into the foibles and follies of spoiled wives, their mogul husbands, frivolous friends and treacherous roué-hangers-on. There is the fixation on overbuilt, ludicrous, luxury bathrooms and wild parties. Very hard to swallow for a contemporary viewer; this throwing onto the screen of high-living and consumer greed, redeemed by unctuous moralistic retribution, was a creature strictly of 1920s America.
Madame Satan was DeMille's attempt to extend this theme into the talkie period, but the extreme artificiality of this type of film only became intensified with the addition of sound. Normally I would say, as others have, to sit through the build-up, such as described above, to the thrilling disaster movie climax aboard the stricken party dirigible. But don't. If you can see the climax in a compilation film or fast forward to it at home, okay, but do not bother with any other part of Madame Satan at all. The talents of Denny, Johnson and Young, and the great MGM sets notwithstanding: it's just not worth it. You won't be able to get away from the silly, plodding, unfunny thud the first part of this movie makes as it shuffles through your mind.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Still Not Completely On Board
There's no doubting its monumental power and ambition; Gone with the Wind is all that. It was David Selznick's testamentno movie before in the sound era had been so technically advanced and sweeping in its dramatic intention and scope (especially in its groundbreaking use of color to set mood and atmosphere). Among many, two things in particular stood out after several viewings. First, it foresaw the elongated structure of movies of three decades hence, where very long running times became typical. In the process it opened up extended running time as an option in the editing of lesser epics. The second, which I suddenly realized after the 4th viewing (and a departure from the normal convention up to that time), is that it declined to focus on the more virtuous figures, instead placing a couple of disreputable and flawed charactersa vain Southern belle and a shady alpha male gunrunnerat the center of the narrative.
As for the first innovation noted, I am ambivalent. As a former film editor for a UHF TV station, assigned to re-format Hollywood movies for airing and as a result required to evaluate cinematic storytelling closely, I often found the extensive length of many pictures made after 1955 to be self-indulgent; 'Scope and color invited plenty of scenic mood-setting. As a film-goer I often found them a test to take in during one sitting.
The second was a revelation; the characters are there in plain sight, and I should've taken them as a given, but for those of us growing up in the '60s, even film buffs, GWTW carries so much baggage that it remains hard for me to take merely on its filmic merits, which are those of timeless, romantic, and melodramatic skill. The problem is that it unabashedly glamorizes and pretties up the Antebellum South and the Confederacy. For a modern African-American, this is somewhat analogous to offering an idealized portrait of the Fourth Reich, with its high-living Albert Speers, their wives, mistresses and servants; enjoying their Alpine adventures and tooling around in their big Mercedes cars until war comes and it all falls apart. If you saw such a film would you applaud it? Would you find it of nostalgic value? If not, you see what I'm getting at.
It has been years now. I am familiar with the reputations of all involved here: they were film industry titans. The casting was inspired. There were many scenes which scream their epic pretensions. But I remain unmoved. In short, I know GWTW is a great movie but to me, because of the story at its very center, the entire exercise still seems hollow and morally suspect. Finally--I may be sounding overly picky, but the famous Atlanta-burning scene has a minor flaw too. It's the railroad cars. The fire inferno is impressive as all get out, but better miniature work was needed for the exploding freight cars. William Cameron Menzies was the best designer ever, but I don't think model work was his niche; other specialts like Fred Jackman, Fred Sersen, Dev Jennings or the Lydecker brothers were needed. Attributing the minor flaw to the distant era isn't a good enough excuse. Just look at the model work in Hell's Angels, Suez, In Old Chicago and The Dawn Patrol, among other films, and you'd see what I mean. In a way it points up a curious problem with Selznick's epics: they lack satisfactory action sequences (Viva Villa excluded). Selznick was interested in character, personality; he was right to be, of course, but such long pictures as this and Duel In The Sun need something other than stylistic posturing. They need real excitement. GWTW is a Civil War epic without a single battle scene. Something is wrong about that.
The Hatchet Man (1932)
What An Ending!
SLIGHT SPOILERS Finally I get to see one of those early Chinese-themed dramas with Hollywood actors made up like Orientals. I'm not talking about a blockbuster like The Good Earth or Dragon Seed, but one of the early sound potboilers. When The Hatchet Man begins, I'm a little leery. A lengthy printed prologue spells out the story premise. I suspect while reading it that this is OK because the cultural norms to be depicted are alien and unfamiliar to a 1932 American movie audience. Edward G. Robinson, always superb, is fine as always; at first I can't recognize Loretta Young though, while on the other hand, Leslie Fenton doesn't initially strike me as Chinese. I'm wondering if the movie is going to be a lot of stereotyped bunk, full of coincidences and contrivance.
Before long, it soon wins me over, getting better and than better still. The Hatchet Man approaches racial dynamics with more insight than expected. Director William Wellman applies intelligence, handling this thriller's more lurid aspects with needed detachment, as in less worthy hands it could've all gone melodramatically out of control. It's pre-Code, so I'm not really surprised that drug use is important to setting up the film's climax, and that one figure, formerly an assassin, is unpunished at fade out. Meanwhile, good character actors handle themselves convincingly (except for Charles Middleton, who is too much like Charles Middleton, and there is still the question of Fenton's casting, although he performs well). Also, I'm starting to come around to the realization that Loretta Young's acting range is limited,something her doll-like beauty has been distracting me from noticing through numerous films of this period.
But the corker is the clever, shocking, coolly ironic surprise ending. People, you have got to see this. Few movies have ever ended with such a jolt!
Heroes for Sale (1933)
An Important and Ultimately Very Sad Social Document
It has been written by another commentator that to weather the Depression the decision was made at Warner Bros., c. 1932, that principal photography on each picture had to be wrapped in no more than 18 days, and that no retakes could be made without head office approval. How the studio still managed, under these conditions, to generate some of the best movies ever in the 1932-33 release period continues to mystify me, but here's another example. Heroes for Sale doesn't just tell an effective, insightful yarn about the plight of the dispossessed and mistreated in the typical fashion of other films from WB's social protest cycle, it literally seethes with indignation about these conditions. Less fiercely bleak than I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, equipped with a more detached protagonist in Richard Barthelmess's Tom, it still manages to pack quite a punch. I disagree with the author of the Barthelmess mini-biography who wrote that his acting style didn't translate well when talkies came in. At least here, he is subtle and effective as the shattered WWI vet who after kicking drugs sees his life gradually turn around, in the form of modest but steady career advancement and a beautiful wife, played by the luminous Loretta Young. We know it's all going to go bad, but how this happens isn't quite what I expected. Indeed the plot contrivance (SPOILER ALERT) that tragically unravels Tom's life and puts him on the road to being a grizzled hobo at first seems innocent and trite: his introduction of a labor saving invention at his job. Heroes for Sale is highly topical but not exactly timeless. At first glance the theme of the wronged, abandoned veteran would seem very current, but it is not really on point in this instance. This picture is more an historical document to be seen in the context of the Bonus March and the social upheavals related to that 1932 event.
The Star Witness (1931)
Well-Made and Exciting
SPOILERS AHEAD For the first ten minutes or so of Star Witness we're introduced to a quote typical urban American family unquote in a nameless city, which is another way of saying Warner Brothers' version of NYC. Except for the young children, including the charming Dickie Moore, and sprightly Sally Blane, they're a pretty dreary lot, and their dinner table conversation is tedious and we wish the story would move along and bring in the star, Walter Huston. But wait, folks, wait. All of a sudden serious gangster movie action breaks out, drawing the family in against their will, and after that this baby never lets up. There's suspense, an Oscar-nominated script, good acting; everything you want old movies to beit is here. I do question Chic Sales performance; he must be an acquired taste, but his presence turns out to be crucial to the plot. He's treated to special status in the credits, so Warner Bros. must have really been high on Sale, but how his corny old man routine fit in with the public then is something lost to me. Perhaps it is lost to time period, an unknowable factor you had to be a 1931 moviegoer to understand. Also, the climax is typically melodramatic. Nevertheless, this right now is the best release of the studio that year I have seen so far (however, I've only seen eight, so perhaps that's an inconclusive view). Do not miss this when TCM shows it. 8 out of 10.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Need Help With This One
With great anticipation I watched the 229-minute DVD director's cut of Once Upon A Time In America. The original release version was supposedly butchered beyond recognition, but I was frustrated to find this one itself had so many problems, because it is often beautiful. What could've been a masterpiece on The Godfather Part II level misses for reasons I cannot fully understand, and it's sad.
It is possible that much of it went over my head, but right now it appears that director Sergio Leone, or his cutter and assembler, unaccountably lost account of or forgot to include crucial narrative information in a way I have never seen happen before in a major production.
SPOILERS AHEAD: At the beginning, a woman is shot by Burt Young and another thug after going to look for Noodles (Robert DeNiro), who's in hiding from them. A few seconds before she notices some bullet holes on or near Noodles' bed. The bullet holes are never explained, and I think this woman was Noodles' girlfriend seen much later in a 1933 flashback (Darlanne Fluegel?). However, we are never really introduced to her; she just shows up those two times with no back story, and this seems confusing and abrupt. The motivation of Burt Young, et al going after them to begin with was vague; it was obviously because of a rip-off but was not shown or explained coherently. There's some build-up to an ambitious robbery that's supposed to be very dangerous, with much forewarning from Tuesday Weld (who is excellent), but we never see this event come down. Yet Leone spends interminable minutes on a boy toying with a pastry. Also there seems to be some material missing about Treat Williams' union official's relationship with organized crime and how this led to James Woods' plight at the movie's conclusion. Finally, what was the point of not bothering to age the actors? Elizabeth McGovern is supposed to look different from 1933 to 1968, but there was no effort to show 30 plus years of aging. De Niro gets some gray in his hair; that's it. I suppose I'm missing some symbolism. I was very unhappy with the rape scene, not only due to the revolting imagery but also because since there was no prior hint of such potential behavior in the development of the DeNiro character, it was shockingly unexpected.
I nod to OUTIA for its breathtaking production design, good cast, good performances and pacing. But for the frustrating lapses, I express puzzlement, unless, as some have suggested, the 1968 portion is all a dream. I'm not used to the way some European directors work, and don't have the time or patience for repeat viewings to tease out all the hidden information here (if it is here at all) as such films require, so I thank other posters for their insights. For now, much of this movie is too abstruse for me.
I still like this picture much better than any other Sergio Leone production I've seen, as I have always been alienated by his supposedly ironic but mostly just arch deconstruction of the Western, in which meaningful dialogue, character development, and exposition is ditched in favor of long, enigmatic minutes of actors' faces close-up as they stare at each other, with strangely grandiose, glorious music swelling up in the background. Call me reactionary, but I regard his contribution to the Western genre to be a largely a load of stylistic, self-absorbed poppycock.
Ten Cents a Dance (1931)
Stanwyck tries to lift dispiriting potboiler
Soon after this effort, Lionel Barrymore went back to acting full-time. I wouldn't blame him. Although Stanwyck is excellent as usual, this is a slight tale, typical of the time, that she alone makes worth watchingone time only. There's something frustrating, moreover, about how her character remains faithfully committed to the lout played by Monroe Owsley for so long. I suppose we have to accept that behavior which in our day would seem masochistic was the cultural norm in 1931 for most women. On the Pre-Code front, there's a gum-chewing scene stealer, foxy Sally Blane as Molly, a newbie who can't wait to dive into the sleazy dance hall world, although Stanwyck tries to advise her (and immediately says she knows that Molly is underage).
What brings everything down is the low budget. Columbia could mount a good-looking feature from time to time, but in 1931, I suppose they weren't doing it very much. The art director does suggest the opulence of Ricardo Cortez's apartment effectively without showing its interior; we get the idea from the lobby, hallway leading up to his door and vestibule, with its snazzy Spanish California motif. But the rest of the picture is pretty threadbare, and Barrymore's direction seems perfunctory and hurried, as if pressured by budget and schedule constraints (I hasten to add that budget is not necessarily everything; take a look at the excellent, absorbing Five Star Final, which basically takes place in two newspaper offices and an apartment living room, to see how resourcefully such conditions can be handled).
As for the story itself, it looks like it was dreamed up by somebody and sketched out on the back of an envelope all in the space of one afternoon. If Barrymore felt dispirited, he sure showed 'em, going into "A Free Soul" this very year, where his performance blew everybody's minds and won him a lifetime MGM contract. The song of the title is pretty good; we hear but do not see it performed by a torchy vocalist.
Welcome Danger (1929)
Unique But Decidedly Mixed Bag
I would agree with most of the other commentators about Welcome Danger, but though an old movie buff I have to admit that I haven't yet seen any Harold Lloyd films in full. So I am really just checking out his full movie persona now. In that regard, a few observations. First of all, at least in talkies, it is hard for me to relate to Lloyd. Here, at least, his Bledsoe character seems brittle, self-absorbed, and because his character is alternately stupid and smart, shy and brash, I could not quite put my finger on how I was supposed to regard him. There's an uncomfortable feeling that he's a "boy-man"however, he's clearly too old for that, and can take perfectly good care of himself when the need arises. There is indeed plenty of humor in how this evolves unwittingly, with Lloyd emerging on the top, but I think someone like Charley Chase did this kind of work a little better. But this applies to talkies only. Maybe in the 20s it all came off better but I still have to see those to "get it." Also, for a comedy movie, this is pretty darn violent. SPOILERS AHEAD: Usually, we don't really equate comedy violence with the real article because it is cartoon-like; the 3 Stooges' mistreatment of each other looks sharply painful but the effect was famously transformed by absurd sound effects and their own behavior. Or the violence is so overblown that the whole experience becomes surreal, as in the 1967 Casino Royale. Here, there is something a little disturbing about the way guys keep getting their noggins clubbed at the height of the Chinatown chase. It goes on and on; I began thinking more about pain than laughing. And in the real climax of the picture things really did get out of hand, with Lloyd's character being whipped within an inch of his life by a barrel-chested black man before bringing him down. Just after this the hero tries to smash the chief villain's head in a mechanical vise! For a transitional talkie, Welcome Danger is painstakingly produced. I got the feeling that Lloyd had plenty of resources and lavished them on this picture. It all looks fairly crude today, but the dubbed dialog, musical track and sound effects weren't easy to do in 1929, so because of Lloyd's creative persistence and control, Welcome Danger doesn't come across as a filmed stage play. Like others, however I wish the film had been more judiciously edited. The sequences extend a lot longer than they should, draining the fun out of a number of gags. I also didn't like the early section where Lloyd and Barbara Kent "meet cute" in Colorado. It was sometimes strained and lame -- Lloyd not recognizing Kent as a female seemed tiresome and idiotic -- perhaps it should have been cut or foreshortened, with the basic gist of it handled through inter-titles. To give Lloyd credit, I suppose the gags seemed fresher than. So much has been stolen and recycled from these early comic pioneers.
The Golden Bed (1925)
Trivial But Competent DeMille
A frivolous melodrama which DeMille made just before leaving Famous Players-Lasky to set up his independent operation.
SPOILERS AHEAD! A spunky but poor lad (Dan Marion, portraying Admah Holtz) falls for an obviously vain and selfish rich girl (Julie Bishop as Flora, before growing up to become Jacqueline Wells and enjoy a long B-movie career) while her sister (Mary Jane Irving as Margaret), the faithful and kind one, is overlooked. Years later the girls have become grown women, with Holtz, now Rod LaRocque, still fixated on Flora, whom he eventually marries with disastrous results. Meanwhile Margaret has been adoringly helping Admah become a wealthy and successful candy manufacturer.
This all unfolds in a fairly irksome manner because the somewhat effete LaRocque behaves like such a hapless clod most of the time. We can't identify much with him. There's good acting coming, however, from the adult sisters (Lillian Rich and Vera Reynolds), especially Flora. Jeanie MacPherson's titles relentlessly remind us that Flora and Margaret are morally polar opposites, yet late in the film we can't help but pity Flora, as the wages of sin and vanity catch up with her and destroy her.
You expect fine production values in a DeMille production and they're here. He was going hard for wish fulfillment fantasies in this series of pictures (starting with Old Wives for New in 1918), appealing to female audiences, so we get the financially ruinous party Flora makes Abmah put on to spite her country club rivals. I'm not sure what people thought about this back in 1925, but the director's idea of having everything at the party made of candy (that's right, guests are shown eating the props and scenery!) is absurdly over-the-top. Which is not to say DeMille was not serious about his tale, or that he couldn't achieve subtlety from time to time. But the back and forth mixture, while interesting to watch, doesn't go down particularly well; it was notoriously on display in Madame Satan, his last film of this type, where the ridiculous goings-on aboard a partying dirigible abruptly change tone and enter disaster movie territory when the airship is crippled..
I will praise the mountain-climbing sequence in the Alps, a well-staged and suspenseful highpoint of the film's first half, though spoiled by terrible special effects at its conclusion. They're so bad DeMille should have scrapped them and used other techniques.
Warner Baxter appears as the one man Flora can't play for a sucker and clearly shows the qualities that would hold him in good stead for many years. Also of note was the theme of class differences (mainly at the beginning). The final sequence, in which the symbolism of the bed of the title becomes clear, is eerie and very good. As the ruined Flora, Lillian Rich excels. The ending, while a little pat, was atmospherically filmed.
DeMille used no camera movement, though that was beginning to come into fashion in '25, but the compositions were skillful, as was the editing, so I was OK with it. The print shown had been well-restored, complete with tinted credits and titles, but the audience left this showing (at Washington's National Gallery of Art), with mixed impressions. One audience member described it as trash, with a reprehensible moral compass. I wouldn't go that far, but The Golden Bed did strike me as being largely empty and pretentious.
Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936)
One of the Best & Most Fun Chans
SPOILERS BELOW Everyone who has written about this film here seems right on time, except for the one who doubted Boris Karloff would be voice-dubbed for a B-movie. That person should remember that this was a 20th Century-Fox B-movie and the studio would and probably did bring a dubbing resource in for this key scene. Karloff's voice as Gravelle has to be striking and outstanding, and it is.
For reasons cited by other writers this movie can be watched over and over again and still enjoyed, if you're indulgent of old movie conventions, as I am. It is genuinely, unabashedly and charmingly corny.
Here we seem to have the best take on Charlie Chan (as interpreted by Oland); others have come close, but this one nails it. Of course many of us wonder what it would be like to see the lost Chans from before 1935, and how they would stack up.
The key is that, although Director Humberstone plays the story essentially straight, there is also an intangible element of tongue-in-cheek fun, as if he's sending up the mystery/horror movie conventions a little bit even while he's carefully using them. The use of Karloff is obviously and completely iconic. Humberstone is especially good at getting revealing reaction shots. There's one great example near the beginning, where one of the performers, Madame Borelli (Nedda Harrigan) discovers Gravelle (Karloff) in her dressing room, and instead of screaming for help, slyly hisses, "I thought you were dead"; we can see the wheels turning within her predatory mind. To what end? You'll find out. The looks Madame Rochelle casts when suddenly confronted by Gravelle on stage are priceless, capping off an extraordinary cinematic moment.
One writer said they wished to hear Oscar Levant's opera, "Carnival" in its entirety. I doubt such a work exists. My guess is that it was written as a fragment, as the excerpts we see in the picture make little sense except to set up and advance the plot.
Roman Scandals (1933)
Um - Has anyone else noticed how bizarre this movie is?
One of the underlying themes is slavery - mostly as satire, but a disturbingly poignant scene at the climax of the slave bazaar number has a girl throwing herself to her death to escape from bondage. This was at a time when Busby Berkeley, the choreographer, was sometimes inserting serious byplay into his numbers (a la "42nd Street"). Boy, is this example a beaut! The Ruth Etting blues solo "No More Love" directly plays on the same theme. Both songs have undercurrents I've never seen suggested in a comedy before or since. These, along with the nutty, racially integrated "Keep Young & Beautiful" routine, add a curiously (yet fascinating) unsavory aspect to the proceedings that is not really easy to characterize.
Oh yeah, what about that lively beer garden drinking song near the beginning and Cantor in black-face! Offensive, absolutely - but somehow, with Cantor, what's not to love? Politically incorrect? You betcha - but this is not cruel or demeaning stuff. It's mostly just out-and-out dream-like crazy.
Others have noted the fine production values, and of course the great comic chariot race at the end. Add it all up and what you've got is a nice, unique, big 'ol pastry of a movie musical. If you wanted something to take your mind of things for 93 minutes in 1933, this was just the ticket. If you want something to take your mind off things for 93 minutes in 2007,this is still just the ticket
Danger Lights (1930)
Great Look At Long Ago Technology
The opening half-hour of "Danger Lights" contains a revealing sequence set in the operational offices of a major railroad as employees deal with an emergency. Here we can see that, to America and Hollywood in 1930, passenger railroading was a mature industry, a national transportation matrix staffed by well-compensated, highly-qualified specialists and depicted on film with all the high-tech allure the airline industry would have forty years later.
"Danger Lights" fits into a long-ago sub-genre of adventure movie, the Locomotive Engineer Adventure. Lon Chaney had made one, "Thunderbolt", as his last silent the previous year.
Another writer on these pages has noted that the human story in "Danger Lights" was a reworking of the Arthurian romantic triangle. Yeah, Right. Triangle, yes, but more like what I call Plot Number 4-A, pulled from the drawer for many a service picture, in which two men (soldiers/flyers/firemen, etc.) find their bond (friendship/father-son/sibling) severed when they are both attracted to the same woman. Usually, the one who feels most spurned or jilted performs some self-sacrificial act of honor near the end to save the other one in a crisis.
On top of all the above is layered an important technological innovation. "Danger Lights" is one of only seven pictures released in 1930-31 in a 70-mm wide screen format. Actually, they were filmed in both the wide screen (alternately called Vitascope, Magnifilm, Natural Vision, Grandeur or Realife), and standard 35 mm formats. I have seen two of the others, "Billy the Kid" and "The Big Trail", and they both have their strengths and weaknesses, but "Danger Lights" is the punchiest, with few draggy moments. It's evident that the compositions even in the 35 version were organized with wide-screen in mind, yet there's good camera movement on hand, and this is especially true whenever a locomotive is prominent.
SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven't seen "Danger Lights", and intend to, consider going no further. Important plot info appears below.
The characters are surprisingly cavalier about their own personal safety around trains until one of the leads, Robert Armstrong, gets his foot caught when a signal tower changes track configuration for an oncoming "Special". This development, shot atmospherically at night in the rain, carries a real sense of visceral dread. What follows is a bit contrived (though excusable in a tense melodrama), as Louis Wilhelm comes along, has a change of heart (suspensefully shown) and saves Armstrong: we see the train cutting in half the mannequin/dummy substituted at the last minute for the actor, but later find Wilhelm's character's only been banged on the head! True, it's complicated by a blood clot only a big-city doctor can relieve; anyway, now the race is on to get him to Chicago in time.
The camera lingers lovingly on this special train as it hurtles through the mountains, around bends and over trestles at the then-thrilling speed of 100 mph, and the ending's a happy one. At this time actors were still getting used to sound pictures, however, so don't expect to see subtle performances. Even Jean Arthur, so accomplished and smooth in later roles, fails to stay on point here. It's all good, though. This is still probably the best 1930 RKO picture.
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Griifith's Great Near Miss
It has been noted elsewhere that the slavery prologue had not been seen for many years after the release of this film. However, this assertion may be somewhat misleading, as it is incomplete. In the introduction to a 1972 PBS broadcast of "Abraham Lincoln" the narrator noted, over some very compelling slavery footage, that the footage never made it to release prints AT ALL due to objections by studio executives. That means, probably, that UA bigwig Joseph Schenck, possibly abetted by John Considine, torpedoed a very important moral dimension Griffith was trying to insert.
Too bad. With Griffith's reputation forever stained due to "Birth Of A Nation", it would be helpful if more could see how he vigorously owned up to the full horror of slavery with this sequence, however late it came in his career. Moreover, he really needed it dramatically, because "Abraham Lincoln" is otherwise a very static and disappointing piece of prestige movie-making.
With knowledge of this director's earlier triumphs, one views this exercise with sadness and longing over what might have been. You can see the effort and high level of historical detail at work here. But almost everywhere Griffith's technique is muffled and sometimes nullified by the technology of talking pictures, and we suppose, by his own creative exhaustion. It did not have to be this way. It would have been better if this master did not allow himself to be snuffed out so early but that is a subject for Griffith biographers to pursue, not this writer.
However, for those of you able to seek out this picture, here are some stand-out scenes to look for. After being informed of a battle's losses, a general (after ensuring himself privacy) collapses in utter despair, weeping on his bed. Griffith's actor does this in silent movie stylethe actor literally crumples without a word. Here, we sense the universal horror and depression of leadership in war, knowing that this is really the strain felt by most generals, not the vainglorious image of General Patton but the anguished self-questioning of the Lees and the Grants of the modern world.
Also, in two places, Grifffith suggests a feeling of the immediacy of modern communications so passé and remote to today's viewers that we have to stop and project ourselves into the memory of the generation Griffith came from-he shows us at documentary-style remove Lincoln pacing back and forth in the telegraph room of the White House as battlefield reports come in; also, and most startlingly, a series of close-ups of a famous Civil War document with the our view skipping and skuddering down to signatures of high authority silently, blankly and suddenly; cuts handled as if we're momentarily in cinema verite editing territory. Never has the intensity and import of written, official text been expressed with as much immediacy. It is also quite ahead of its time.
So "Abraham Lincoln" is to be viewed as a historical artifact, primarily, from the period when silent film directors were trying to transition to talkies. For any of you turned off by its artificial, stilted and manneristic qualities, don't stop screening--there are a number of more successful examples then this one.
Mackenna's Gold (1969)
60s Pop Epic & Pure Escapist Fun
I have very fond memories of seeing Columbia's "MacKenna's Gold" before it was even released, as a sneak preview in Washington, DC. It was a glorious throwback even then. Critics at the time (as well as other commentators on this page) have noted the cheesy insertion of phony "exteriors" and I did too at the time, as well as scenes like a conversation between Gregory Peck and someone where actual location medium shots were inter-cut with studio ones against a rear projection screen. OK. But we must remember that some of the craftsmen involved here cut their teeth on large-scale color features of the 40s and 50s, and this is how they made the big ones then (examples: the second unit cameraman's first credit dates back to 1931; Art Director Cary Odell had been working at this studio, and no other, since 1942).
As for the continuity and motivational problems, I didn't notice any of them; perhaps I saw a version before trimming. But even I, at the age of 18, winced at the hokey Turkey Buzzard title song, Omar Shariff looked and sounded funny and out-of-place in a Western, and Italian character actor Eduardo Ciannelli, as the dying Indian Peck finds in the wilderness (who passes along his plot-motivating secret), was comically miscast, but once again, this is how such things were done in those days. This was indeed twilight time for the old Hollywood. The same year, "Once Upon A Time In The West" and "The Wild Bunch" would change the Western forever.
But bad special effects? "MacKenna's Gold" was supposed to be exhibited in Cinerama, but the studio executives abandoned that idea in favor of a general release, which would still be in
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SUPER PANAVISION 70...!
You had to be there, in that old movie palace in downtown Washington, on that day to see those "cheesy" special effects through those young eyes on that ultra wide screen. The desperate ride down the sides of the canyon wall, seen from the riders' points of view, (with the two competing women fighting it out, until Julie Newmar takes the Big Fall) and the climactic collapse of the canyon itself, was thunderously, unexpectedly, thrillingly vivid! I left the darkness vibrating with excitement. Of course my preview comment card reflected my youthful approval! Corny? Over-the-top? Hammily written and acted? Sure, but like I said, you had to be there
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Cocktail Hour (1933)
Columbia Showing A Little Style
MINOR SPOILER ALERT.
Saw this at a Library of Congress screening in the Spring of 2003; it was a pleasing, if minor, Depression-era diversion. By this I mean it was (and is) a perfect way for any put-upon person to lose 73 minutes. "Cocktail Hour" has almost no edgy, precode vibes, a la Warner Bros. Instead there're attractive well-dressed people in chic apartments (better art direction then I expected from Columbia) doing moderately interesting, but non-taxing things, and a shipboard romance capped by Bebe Daniels warbling a cute song. Randolph Scott had just come from doing a batch of memorable Paramount B-Westerns. This was one of his only loan-outs during this period, and the chemistry between the two leads is just fine.
Melodrama intrudes into "Cocktail Hour" once the cast reaches Paris, including a threatening character getting shoved through a window, but rather then jar this works to keep things lively. Budgetary constraints mean no exteriors, either in the early "Manhattan" sequences or in "Paris"you have to use your imaginationbut it's OK; whatever you do see is slick enough to get by. Being a second tier studio, Columbia couldn't or wouldn't bring a first-rate supporting cast together for every production, and as a result "Cocktail Hour" had to settle for, along with a lot of other people I didn't recognize, the obscure Muriel Kirkland as an amusing fake countess (Dennis O'Keefe was listed in the IMDb credits doing a bit, but I didn't notice him). All in all, good escapism.
Bad Company (1931)
Evenly split between good and crummy elements
My view of "Bad Company" is very splitI have never seen an old movie so split between outstanding and lousy elements. All and all it's worth watching, but in order to explain why, I have to ALERT YOU TO UPCOMING SPOILERS.
Saw this almost 20 years ago on AMC, so it's not going to be a very incisive description, but basically it's an early underworld drama with 2 young people (Helen Twelvetrees and John Garrick) trying to get untangled from a gangster (Ricardo Cortez).
Let's get the bad things out of the way, first. There's a mad scene late in the film where Twelvetrees realizes that Cortez, muttering & walking back and forth near a bust, I think of Napoleon (or himself, I don't remember), has lost his marbles. The shots alternate between Cortez, chewing the scenery, to Twelvetrees' increasingly horrified expressions. With each succeeding cut these expressions become more and more ridiculously overdrawn. In these moments, film acting seemed to move back to early Vitagraph days.
Then there's a plot angle that no one would be able to swallow. Harry Carey, playing a law enforcement officer, wants to trap Cortez and assassinate him. He's supposed to arrive at a bootlegging vessel, and when he comes downstairs on the ship, Carey will be waiting for him, with a
30 caliber mounted machine gun!! But Cortez gets wise and has Garrick go instead. We see the young fellow walking downstairs into the hold, Carey's grip on the trigger tightening, then there's an artful fade to black. Fade up on Garrick, not in unidentifiable pieces in the morgue, but waking up in the hospital with a slight leg wound. He's well enough to jump up to go out to save Twelvetrees! While going there, the taxicab he's a passenger in is struck by a trolley and almost cut in half. But Garrick just jumps out and starts running!! And now the good stuff. Arthur Miller's camera-work is excellent; one marvels at what he had to do to get an early scene where bootlegging ships rendezvous at night. No process screens, day-for-night or miniatures were used. Tay Garnett's direction is often exceedingly graceful, especially his use of dissolves during a lavish gangland wedding, which even has a dirigible dropping balloons (or maybe it was flowers). Also this is the one of the more action-packed early crime pictures I have seenunlike "Public Enemy" or "Little Caesar", in which the shoot-outs either were clumsily or perfunctorily staged, or done off-screen.
Worth watching, if you just ignore those little problems I noted above.
Billy the Kid (1941)
MGM throws history out the window
The film suffers from being part of the prettified world MGM wanted to present the movie-going world, at least in this period. On the other hand, "Young Guns" probably got it about right, for those who want to compare. According to Western historical scholars, Billy Bonner could've been well-described as a psychotic teenage killer. Not the noble--though driven--much older figure figure depicted by Robert Taylor. Also, the settings are a little too built up. Anyone who's spent time in the more remote parts of New Mexico knows what I mean. The rancher who's his mentor has a nice ranch house with grass! Finally, the movie is short on action. The photography is fine, but if you want real 1941 Technicolor splendor, drop this one and check out "Blood and Sand".