Once a week I go to teriyaki restaurant,
hauling my laptop with me in the hopes of doing some useful work without
distractions. There is a large screen television present, typically set to the
current fantasy or superhero fare. I don’t find these films distracting
because, frankly, I find them a bit like high-fat food, which might taste
“good” going down, but have little nutritional value. Even a supposed
“intellectual” sci-fi film like Interstellar
is more bemusing than enlightening; any fascination one might have of the plot
is due mainly to the difficulty in figuring out what the hell it is supposed to
be about. Of the constant parade of “superhero” movies, I’m constantly confused
about the moral “point” of them, since the “good” guys are often as unlikeable
as the “bad” guys. Even an “old-fashioned” production, like pseudo-musical La-La-Land, has the serious fault of a
“surprise” ending that leaves it a decided downer, something that such a film
should never be; I’ll never watch it again. The last time I actually went to a
theater to watch a movie was back in 1998, which of course was Titanic; I fell asleep about 45 minutes
into it, but woke-up just in time for the iceberg hit. As for what CGI does it
is not “art,” just a substitution for it. Often it’s like wearing sunglasses in
the dark; it’s not “cool,” it’s dumb. And today’s’ “message” movies
(particularly of the gender variety) seem overly personal and alienating.
Perhaps the audience has changed,
wanting eye candy, cheap thrills, or cheap ideological satisfaction. But being of an older generation before cable
TV became ubiquitous, “old movies” populated late night channels in search of something
to fill the lonely hours, my “horizon” is a little bit more expansive. Not that
you can’t find such fare on TV anymore; TCM, Movies, AMC air the films I
remember, and even COMET is good for a few chuckles playing B-movie “cult
classics.” However, it actually took me awhile to appreciate films from the
earliest days, especially so-called “Pre-Code” films with their social realism,
frank sexuality, and violence; in Red
Dust, the sexuality between Clark Gable and Jean Harlow was something that
many people might be surprised to see from that time—especially when Mary Astor
busts in on the pair, finding them in what one can only assume to be the doing
“it” position. I also found that I enjoy Carole Lombard’s films, as well as
those of Bette Davis, Gable, Robert Montgomery, John Garfield and James Cagney. All these actors have something that is sorely lacking in today's "stars"--their own unique individual brand of charisma; they were not cut-out dolls with different hair color.
Although the films immediately
following the Pre-code era might seem tame in certain regards, they did not
dispense completely with serious messages. A comedy like the 1937 film Nothing Sacred with Lombard and
Frederick March savagely satirized “friendly” small town America, the medical
profession and the media circus. Films like The
Black Legion, The Ox Bow Incident,
High Noon, No Way Out and The
Blackboard Jungle were films that pulled few punches in exposing hate
groups, mob rule, abandonment of moral responsibility, racism and the culture
of violence. Films like Giant, Trial and Man From Del Rio were what is today a rarity: films that expose
anti-Hispanic racism that is today stronger than ever, albeit hidden behind the
façade of immigration, as I mentioned in my previous post.
Naturally there are no theaters
in the Seattle area that have old film “festivals” anymore, although one of
Seattle’s landmark buildings, the Paramount Theatre, built in 1928 just in time
for the advent of the “talkies,” still has its occasional “Silent Movie
Monday,” apparently a nod to this long lost past. For example, this Monday the
Lon Chaney/Tod Browning film The Unknown
with live musical accompaniment will be run. I won’t be able to see it because
I work nights, but thanks to the film having been released on DVD for the
Turner Classic Movies series back in 2003, and being fortunate enough to own this
out-of-print set, I have watched this movie many times. I admit that I own the
set not so much because I am a Chaney fan but that of Joan Crawford, who I
suspect that many locals who have seen the advertisement at the Paramount do
not recognize as the woman cradling Chaney’s head without those dark eyebrows.
I own about
two-dozen Crawford films on DVD, although I personally prefer her Pre-code
films over her post-Mildred Pierce
output (much of which is B-grade camp) in which Crawford not just acts less
feminine but looks it. It was those early films that led F. Scott Fitzgerald to
regard her as “the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night
clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote,
faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with
wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.” My favorite film from
her later period is Humoresque, probably
because it is more a vehicle for the great Garfield, and at least Johnny Guitar has that climactic
showdown between Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge which has that air of
credibility which all these current films with superheroes, “atomic blondes”
and an Everly who kills a hundred
trained assassins while never leaving the room do not have. Crawford’s films
were also known for plot lines of the “shopgirl” making good through
cleverness and/or hard work, not through some sense of privilege or
“entitlement.”
But The Unknown belongs to the “Man of a
Thousand Faces,” and this is a film that serious videophiles should not miss.
Chaney may not have had matinee idol looks, but he was one of the biggest stars
of his time because he was one of early cinema’s truly great actors, probably the greatest of the
silent era. Although Chaney’s Alonzo the Armless is actually an “act” hiding a
criminal career, and is consumed by hate, he does love Crawford’s Nano, who
claims that she hates the touch of men, but appears to love Alonzo because he has
no arms to do so. The circus strongman Malabar is also in love with Nano,
although she seems disgusted by his touch. Alonzo, however, makes the mistake of
encouraging him while he decides that to win Nano’s love for himself, he must
take the horrific step of making real what he has kept hidden from everyone but
his assistant (who he eventually poisons to hide this secret). When he discovers
that Nano and Malabar are happily in love, his reaction is something that must
be one of the great acting performances ever; Chaney biographer Michael Blake
noted that Burt Lancaster called this
scene one of the most “compelling and exhaustive” he had ever witnessed on screen.
Overall, The Unknown, which this post I am sure will be too late to convince
anyone to see, is at the very least the finest of Chaney’s collaborations with
Browning, who also directed the horror classic Dracula and the cult classic Freaks.
Chaney was to play the title character of Dracula,
but he died soon after his only “talkie,” The
Unholy Three. This latter film demonstrated that Chaney had a future in the
new medium, displaying a remarkable versatility both as an actor and in speech.
Chaney certainly would have been at home both in horror and comedy, and no
doubt drama as well. It is also disappointing that another superstar of the silent era, Clara Bow, never allowed herself to become comfortable in the "talkie" era. It wasn't because she couldn't "talk"; as demonstrated in the only sound film currently available on DVD from Bow, Call Her Savage, she could easily have covered the same ground as Harlow. In fact, Mark A. Vieira uses an image of Bow from that very film on the cover his fascinating and well-illustrated book on the Pre-code era, Sin in Soft Focus--and for good reason. Though Savage is by no means a "classic," it has its place in film history as an everything-AND-the kitchen sink example of what "Pre-code" was.
Perhaps because I grew-up in a
different “time,” I do not “appreciate” current film and music “culture” as
much as deserves, but I don’t thinks so. I am not so “old” that I can’t tell
the difference between true talent that shines brightly regardless of era, and
that which has meaning only for those who know nothing else. I’m not saying
that there isn’t anything “good” being made, just that for a person who wants
protein and not a lot of fat in his cultural “diet,” it is hard to come by now.
No comments:
Post a Comment