These Amazing Shadows

Last month, Ben Mankiewicz sat down with the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on the day that the new entries to the National Film Registry were announced. Together they presented a night of movies that were among the 2017 honorees, but started off with a documentary about the National Film Registry, These Amazing Shadows. It's available on DVD and for those who do the streaming thing, Amazon streaming.

Apparently, we have Ted Turner to thank for the National Film Registry. Not, however, for the same reason we can thank him for TCM. Our story begins in the mid-1980s when Turner amassed the back library of movies that would become the "Turner library" and formed the backbone of the TCM schedule, even more so in the early years than now. To try to monetize that library meant not a cable channel yet, since cable space was still at a premium. Instead, he tried to colorize the movies, which pissed off a lot of old-time Hollywood people, who testified before Congress. (Since Ted Turner was now the copyright holder on these movies, he was probably legally in the clear to colorize them if he wanted, but the early colorization looked terrible.) The stars' pleas for film preservation in the original state ultimately led to the creation of the Registry, which has as its task the annual selection of 25 movies that are aesthetically, culturally, and historically important.

This means that it's not just going to be the Hollywood classics that are selected. Obviously, a lot of those classes are culturally important, and tentpole titles like Citizen Kane or Casablanca were among the selections in the first year (1989). But it's not just going through all the big classics that would lead to selecting independent films or even stuff that is basically home movies. There's a reason the Zapruder film is on the registry, or the "let's all go to the lobby" jingle.

Part of the job of the registry is to preserve the movies, so the documentary goes into a bit of discussion on preservation, telling us about the horrors of nitrate degradation and how nitrate was used up until the early 1950s as film stock before we got safety film that was just as good. There's also a look at the film vaults and the job that the preservationists actually do.

Overall, These Amazing Shadows is a good primer for somebody who knows next to nothing about the registry or the topic of film preservation. For the sort of people who watch too much TCM, however, it's probably too cursory. The part about how the committee actually makes its selections is probably the most interesting, but the film has too much in the way of clips of the classics. It would have been interesting to see more from the home movie-type stuff. I think all that got mentioned was the footage from the Topaz internment camp for Japanese Americans, and a few brief clips of a movie about the town of Cologne, MN.

These Amazing Shadows is something I'd certainly recommend if it shows up on TV again, but not particularly anything I'm looking to add to my DVD collection.

Doll Face

Last year, I bought a Carmen Miranda box set off of Amazon. (For some reason, this set doesn't seem to be available from the TCM Shop. But it's also avaialable on Amazon streaming for those who do that thing, and for free if you've got a Prime membership.) One of the movies on it I hadn't seen before is Doll Face, so I finally watched it over the weekend.

Vivian Blaine plays Doll Face, real name Mary Elizabeth Carroll. In the opening scene she's auditioning for a play to be produced by Flo Hartman (Reed Hadley), but one of Flo's assistants recognizes her as Doll Face. This is important because Doll Face is a burlesque star, and Flo wants respectable, cultured stars. This pisses off both her and her fiancé Mike (Dennis O'Keefe), who also produced the burlesque show. (He pronounces "burlesque" as "burly-Q".) But Mike gets an idea when he buys something and gets a free book as part of the purchase. Why not have Doll Face tell her life story, except that the book will be ghostwritten for her!

It's a wacky idea, but this is a movie, so why not try it? The only thing they have to lose is some money. So Mike contacts Fred Gerard (Stephen Dunne), the author of the book he got, and while Fred is initially resistant to the idea, he eventually decides to take it on. All goes well, or so it seems. Fred and Doll Face have to spend a lot of time together on the book project, which leads Mike to fear that the two are falling in love with each other.

The book becomes a success, leading Flo to decide to produce a show based on the book starring Doll Face. The only problem is, by this time, Mike has broken off the relationship, convinced that Doll Face is involved with Fred, and Doll Face responds by actually starting a relationship with Fred for real. And Doll Face is none too happy with the idea that Mike should be an integral character in the show. After all, Mike only discovered Doll Face and made her who she is.

You'll notice that even though I watched this off a DVD in a Carmen Miranda box set, I haven't mentioned her yet. That's because this is a slightly atypical role for her. She only gets one musical number, in the last 15 minutes as part of the Broadway play of Doll Face's life. Other than that, she's playing almost an Eve Arden type, a wisecracking but wise woman named Chita Chula who understands that Mike is really the right guy for Doll Face and tries to make things right between the two. She also gets one of the best scenes in the movie. When Mike is discussing the idea of everybody in the burlesque show getting parts in the Broadway show, he tells Chita that she could become the next Carmen Miranda. Chita is none too pleased about it, disparaging the Carmen Miranda stereotype.

On the whole, Doll Face is competently produced, but it's among the least memorable of all the Fox musicals I've seen. (If I'm Lucky, which I reviewed nearly five years ago and which is also on this set, might be even lower on the Fox musical scale.) Part of that is because of the lesser cast, headed by Blaine. The second couple subplot goes to Perry Como and Martha Stewart the actress and is also forgettable, other than a running gag about beating your girlfriend because women like that. There's also the fact that Carmen only gets the one number, with the other numbers being blah. Finally, it's in black and white. It's not bad; it's just absolutely nothing special.

For the price of the Miranda box set, I'm glad to have seen this movie. Fans of Fox's musicals will probably like it too. And for the price on Amazon streaming, it wouldn't be too expensive either. But I'm not certain I'd consider it good enough ever to buy it on a standalone DVD, certainly not if it were released on Fox's MOD scheme.

Eddie Muller meets Annette Bening

I don't follow new releases all that much since I live in an area that doesn't get the limited-release stuff, but apparently Annette Bening is playing classic movie star Gloria Grahame in the new movie Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. (Why don't they die there?) Somebody at TCM came up with the brilliant idea of bringing Bening in and having her talk about her new movie and Grahame while presenting some of Grahame's movies. That lineup is tonight, with Bening being interviewed by Noir Alley host Eddie Muller, which seems reasonable considering the noirs that Grahame made.

Unfortunately, it's on a Sunday night, which means that we only get two movies before we have to go to Silent Sunday Nights and the TCM Import. In a Lonely Place is a good selection since it's clearly a noir; it kicks the night of at 8:00 PM. The other movie is The Bad and the Beautiful at 10:00 PM. It's definitely not a noir, but you can't fault them including it since it's the movie that won Graham the Oscar. This even though Grahame's part is surprisingly small.

It's too bad they couldn't do this on another night of the week so they could include more movies like The Big Heat or Crossfire.

The Naked Prey

TCM's monthly Spotlight was on last night, this month dealing with survival movies and hosted by Ben Mankiewicz. I recorded The Naked Prey and watched it this morning since it's available on DVD from the Criterion Collection.

Cornel Wilde, who also directed, stars as the Man, who has no other name. He's a safari guide in southern Africa sometime in the 19th century; I don't think an exact date was given. He's taking another man out on a safari, when some native African tribesmen show up. Wilde understands their dialect; the other guy doesn't. It turns out that they want some nominal payment in exchange for using their land, more or less. The other guy says no, and eventually the tribesmen respond by coming back and overrunning the safari party.

The tribe kills the other guy, but gives Wilde a chance at life. They strip him down to just a loincloth and give him a head start, only to have ten tribesmen head off after him not long after this. It seems like impossible odds, but if the odds were that long, we wouldn't have much of a movie, would we. The movie goes on like this for another 70 minutes or so, with Wilde trying to escape the tribesmen and make it back to the colonial fort, while for various reasons the tribesmen's number diminishes.

That's pretty much all there is to The Naked Prey. This lack of anything more than an extremely basic, primal plot, makes the movie a bit hard to review in the way you'd do a review of a more typical movie. There's also very little dialogue. Wilde is by himself for most of the movie, while when the tribesmen do talk, it's in their native language and not English. But the story is such that we can understand what they're talking about.

Having said all that, The Naked Prey is more than worth a watch. That very basic plot makes the action easy to follow, and it's easy to have sympathy with both sides of the chase. There's also a lot of beautiful cinematography, as the movie wsa filmed on location in South Africa and the then Rhodesia. There is what looks like stock wildlife footage interspersed, used to good effect to show the brutality of nature. However, all of that footage looks like it's on slightly different film stock, or taken with a telephoto lens, or something that makes it just enough different to be noticeable. I doubt there was much Wilde could do to get around that without ballooning the budget, however.

It's a shame that the Criterion Collection DVDs are so expensive. But for those who do the streaming thing, The Naked Prey is also available from Amazon video.

Jean-Pierre Aumont, 1911-2001

Jean-Pierre Aumont standing behind Diana Ross in a scene from Mahogany (1975)

Today marks the birth anniversary of French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, who was born on this day in 1911. Aumont was one of those Frenchmen who came over to the US during World War II, and that knowledge of English enabled him to get parts in various Hollywood and British movies set in France (or requiring somebody suitably French) over the years. Among them are Lili, John Paul Jones (as King Louis XVI), the above Mahogany, and at the end of his career, Jefferson in Paris.

Of course, Aumont also made a lot of movies in French in his native France, and that's probably where I first came to recognize the name. In François Truffaut's Day for Night, Aumont plays Alexandre, the actor who portrays the father in the film-within-a-film. It's one of the best movies about the movies you'll see, and I strongly recommend it if you haven't seen it before.

(And if you're wondering why I used a screenshot from Mahogany, it's because I've got that one at hand on DVD and not any of the others.)

Thursday Movie Picks #182: Character Names in the title

This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of "Thursday Movie Picks", the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is movies with a character name in the title, and I have just so happened to pick three movies with one-word titles that are all the name of the lead female character:

Lisa (1962). Dolores Hart plays Lisa, a survivor of Auschwitz who is now a refugee and looking for a way out of Europe. Her first attempt has her followed by a detective (Stephen Boyd) to England, where an unscrupulous man plans to sell her into sex slavery in South America. So the detective gets involved, with the trafficker winding up dead and the detective feeling he has to help Lisa get to Palestine (this is before it became Israel; there was that British blockade as you'll recall).

Julie (1956). Doris Day plays Julie, a stewardess who meets Lyle (Louis Jourdan), falls in love with him, and quits her job to marry him, only to find out he's insanely jealous. So she decides she's going to get out of the marriage and go back to being a stewardess. Of course Lyle stalks her onto one of her flights. Doris Day did have the chops to do more serious stuff, even if she didn't actually do it often.

Emma (1932). Marie Dressler plays Emma, the maid in a family who helped raise the four children of a wealthy inventor (Jean Hersholt). He's an aging widower, and decides he's going to marry Emma. The three eldest children (including Myrna Loy) all hate Emma for this; the fourth has only known Emma as a mother and is devoted to her. Melodramatic, but Dressler is great as always.

TCM Star of the Month January 2018: Charles Boyer

We're into a new month on TCM, which means a new Star of the Month. This month I think is a first-timer for the Star of the Month honor, Charles Boyer, whose movies are going to be on TCM every Thursday in prime time continuing into Wednesday morning Unfortunately, the only image I could find already on my hard drive is from The Garden of Allah, which does not seem to be part of the tribute, which is a bit of a shame because despite the silly story, it's a physically gorgeous movie to watch. Apparently, I don't even have any photos of Boyer in Gaslight, which kicks off prime time next Thursday, Jan. 11, at 8:00 PM. (Surprisingly, I've got several of that other French actor, Louis Jourdan.)

Anyhow, this first Thursday in January features movies from the earlier part of Boyer's Hollywood career, up to about 1940. It looks like the latest movie this week is All This and Heaven Too (9:45 PM), from 1940 and starring Boyer as the father in a mid-19th century French family who falls in love with the governess (Bette Davis) with tragic results. Considering this is a Warner Bros. movie and the star power it has, it's one that shows up rather less than you'd think.

Boyer has a small role as Jean Harlow's chauffeur in Red-Headed Woman tomorrow at 8:15 AM; this is a really fun one thanks to Harlow's performance as a social climber out to get a rich husband. Boyer has very little to do here except look handsome, and get a key shot late in the story; I don't want to give that away if you haven't seen the movie yet.

One that I haven't seen before is Liliom at 12:30 AM; this movie is the same story that was later turned into the musical Carousel. This version of the story was filmed in France by Fritz Lang. The story is by Ferenc Molnár, who also gave us The Guardsman and No Greater Glory (a version of his "Pal Street Boys" story).

Peggy Cummins, 1925-2017

Peggy Cummins (l.) with John Dall in Gun Crazy

Peggy Cummins, who had a very memorable role in the noir cycle opposite John Dall in Gun Crazy, died last Friday aged 92, although news of the death was not announced until yesterday afternoon. Eddie Muller, host of TCM's Noir Alley, has an excellent summing up of Cummins' life on his Facebook page. (I don't do Facebook.)

Movies on Sundays

I thought I had mentioned the short Movies on Sundays before. To be fair, it's a bit tough to come up with a good search that will narrow the results down to this title, but using the names of the stars in it gave up no hits. Anyhow, it's going to be on TCM tonight at about 1:34 AM, following Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in the night of W.C. Fields movies.

Back in the day, states had blue laws that prohibited all sorts of commerce. Nowadays, most of what's left has to do with alcohol: you can't buy alcohol before noon on Sunday or somesuch. Apparently, Pennsylvania once had a law that prevented Sunday matinees at the movies. So in 1935 MGM put out a short aimed at giving talking points to moviegoers in Pennsylvania as to why that restriction should be lifted. (The proper argument should be, "Fuck off, slaver.")

A couple of stars: Kay Francis, May Robson, and Warner Oland reprising his Charlie Chan character, show up to give arguments for getting rid of the blue laws regarding the movies. It's all interestingly silly stuff. Not as bad as, say, This Theater and You or The Case Against the 20% Federal Admissions Tax on Motion Picture Theatres, but still the arguments seem nuts to those of us watching it 80-some years later. Still, it's also an interesting historical document of an era when these blue laws actually existed.

Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

I finally watched Intolerance off my DVR. It's available on DVD in several version, so I don't have a problem doing a full-length post on it.

Director D.W. Griffith made this one following Birth of a Nation, a film controversial for its depictions of black people and its perceived parise of the Ku Klux Klan, which was comparatively moribund until Birth of a Nation helped enable the renewed Klan of the 1920s. Griffith decided he was going to make a movie to answer his critics, and Intolerance is the result.

The structure of Intolerance involves parallel stories in four time periods, all showing how hate and a haughty spirit among those with power can lead to disastrous consequences. In chronological order, those four stories are set in the Babylonia of Prince Belshazzar; the Israel of Jesus; 16th century France, and the then present of 1916. The two middle stories should be well known to anybody who's studied history or grown up in a majority-Christian country.

As for the modern story, that's the most interesting part. It involves a bunch of women who decide to go on a moral crusade, calling themselves "uplifters". The leader of the "uplifters" is a spinster who guilts her brother into giving them the money for their actions. The brother owns a factory, and the money he spends causes the factory to become unprofitable, so he takes actions that lead to a strike and all the workers getting fired. The Girl (Mae Marsh) is the daughter of one of the workers who dies in the strike; she meets The Boy (Robert Harron) who after losing his job is forced into a life of crime. He gets sent to jail, she gets their child taken away from her, and so on and so on, leading up to a chase sequence to stop an execution.

I have to admit I was decidedly underwhelmed by Intolerance. The movie made it on the last AFI list of 100 greatest American movies released about a decade ago. I can't help but think, however, but that was largely a response to the previous AFI list back in 1999. Birth of a Nation was on that list, and frankly Birth of a Nation is a much better movie regardless of the political message it carries. But just as Griffith wanted to respond to his critics, I've always gotten the impression that Intolerance replaced Birth of a Nation on the AFI list because critics wanted to make a point about the terribleness of Birth of a Nation

What's the problem with Intolerance? There are a couple. Short shrift is given to two of the stories, the Jesus one and the Huguenot one. In general this would be a problem, but when you have a movie running over three hours you'd think they could come up with a narrative that gives enough time for all four stories. The bigger problem, however, is that the movie is didactic, and Griffith has no qualms about beating us over the head with his point about how horrible intolerance is. We get the point already. The melodramatic nature of the modern story is also a bit of a problem. Even with that, however, the movie probably would have worked better with just the modern story and the Babylonian story; I'm reminded of Noah's Ark which only had two stories as well. Or even more dramatically just make a standard and normal length movie about the present day story.

And yet there are good things about Intolerance, mostly in the Babylon sets. Those are spectacularly outsized, as befits a movie that was conceived as having an epic budget. You can imagine Cecil B. DeMille remembering this movie when he made the silent version of The Ten Commandments, and then thinking of it again when he made the sound version of The Ten Commandments that we all remember. The movie also has effective use of intercutting, especially in the climax. Griffith had learned this technique well from Birth of a Nation.

Would I recommend this movie? I think Intolerance is one of those movies that should be seen once, but that probably shouldn't stand as an all-time great.