The Women (ザ・ウィメン, 1939)

Theres a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel. 

I just re-watched this film for the umpteenth time. With every screening, it just gets better and better. The dialogue is so rapid that one often misses jokes spoken under the breath (esp. by Rosalind Russell) the first time around only to catch them the next time around. Some of the dialogue is a bit dated – often shockingly so. For example when Mary’s mother tells her to stop lying about on her bed “like a swastika.” I don’t mind that the plot centers on men but I do object to some of the dialogue that demeans women. I tolerate it because the film really is a product of its time -- and there is so much great dialogue that outshines any awkward moments. Though this is my favourite George Cukor film, I do admit to hitting rewind before the very last scene because it is so saccharine it makes my stomach turn.

But enough feminism as I could hardly compete with Jeanette Winterson’s fabulous essay on the film. I love this film because of Clare Booth Luce’s crackingly bitchy dialogue and for the stunning performances from some of my favourite 1930s actresses. The lead is played by Norma Shearer, one of the classiest actresses of all time and so under-rated these days. Joan Crawford plays “the other woman” and perfects the bitch stereotype that would haunt her for the rest of her career. I don’t know if all the stories about Crawford and Shearer hating each other in real life are true or just publicity for the film, but they do have a wonderful frisson of chemistry in the dressing room confrontation.

Rosalind Russell, master of physical comedy, puts in an astounding performance as a truly awful high society matron – and wears the most hideous clothes. The wonderful character actress Mary Boland is hilarious as the Countess De Lave (L’amour, l’amour) – I also recommend seeing her as Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (1940). One of the original Goldwyn Girls and at the time wife of Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard plays the foxy Miriam Adams. I recently discovered that her fourth husband was the renowned writer Erich Maria Remarque – would love to read more about that relationship. Goddard was a great comic actress and it is a shame that she lost out on the role of Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. She would have been great in that film. Joan Fontaine is beautiful as always but annoying as Peggy. The poor thing must have hated not having any of the good lines. Among the many other ladies in the piece, I will end with a nod to Phyllis Povah as the obnoxious woman with too many daughters, Hedda Hopper who plays a herself to a T, and of course the young Virginia Weidler, who was a truly great child actress and sadly died much too young. She puts in a great performance as Katherine Hepburn’s sister in The Philadelphia Story (1941). If you haven’t seen it yet, then it’s time to paint your nails girls…. JUNGLE RED!

Some of my favourite lines:

Nancy Blake: You're so resourceful, darling, I ought to go to you for plots.
Sylvia Fowler: You ought to go to someone.

Olga: She's got those eyes that run up and down a man like a searchlight.

Sylvia Fowler: You simply must see my hairdresser, I DETEST whoever does yours.

Miriam Aarons: A woman's compromised the day she's born.

Exercise instructress: Let's begin with posture. A lady always enters a room erect.
Sylvia Fowler: Most of my friends exit horizontally.

Nancy Blake: Spider's in the parlor. Lets go join her

©cmmhotes 2006

Anna Karenina (アンナ・カレニナ, 1935)

My late grandmother Jessie saw this film when she was sixteen years old. She had never seen it since when she spoke to me about it in her seventies, but she could still recall with clarity what a beautiful film it was and how moved she had been by it. Watching it for the first time today I could see why. Clarence Brown’s 1935 film enchants from the very beginning, with its powerful score by Herbert Stothart, elaborate costumes and sets, and glorious cinematography. Everything and more that one would expect from a 1930s MGM extravaganza and from legendary producer David O. Selznick.

Some of my favourite moments include the marvelous retreating tracking shot that hovers just a hairsbreadth off the extremely long table set with a sumptuous meal and candelabras as the Russian soldiers sing a lusty song. An incredible shot which must have involved a camera on a special crane. The food is so close that one would think the camera would bump into something at any moment. Other beautiful shots include Garbo’s appearance at the train station stepping out of a cloud of steam; Garbo’s melancholy face looking out the window of the train to St. Petersburg with a sunset reflecting in the glass in front of her; the horse race scene is shot extremely well, with cameras moving in front of and alongside the riders in a very breathtaking way; and of course the incredible look Anna gets on her face in her final scene when she hears the tap-tap-tap of the man checking the wheels on the train. I feel sure that my grandmother must have been truly entranced by the splendour of the scene at the ball when Anna and Vronsky infamously dance the mazurka together, and I know she must have wept with sorrow, as I did, during the final scene when Anna has seen Vronsky depart on the train for battle (an anomaly not in the novel but it works as a Hollywood remedy to turn a 900 page novel into a 90 minute film).

Fans of Tolstoy’s novel will of course be disappointed by almost complete erasure of the story of Levin and Kitty. In the novel, their tale had equal weight of that of Anna and Vronsky. It has been a long time since I read the novel, but I remember it being devastating. When Anna threw herself under the train at the end of the seventh part, I stopped reading. I could not bear to read on. Viewing this film reminds me that I should revisit the novel and brace myself to read to the very end. Hollywood softened the blow by not showing us Anna’s actual jump, ut it was devastating just the same. The one thing I have never been able to identify with in Anna Karenina, nor forgive her for, is her choice of Vronsky over her son. The film renders this as equally heartbreaking as in the novel by casting dear, sweet Freddie Bartholomew, angel of such films as Little Lord Fauntleroy (John Cromwell, 1936) and Captains Courageous (Victor Fleming, 1937), as little Sergei. I could not understand Anna’s choice when reading the novel as a teenager, and now as a mother myself I understand it even less. The screenwriters did a great job of transforming a subject that I’m sure they knew would be a challenge to get past the censors.During Anna’s affair with Vronsky, they rarely lock lips, and if they do it is only for a brief second. The screenwriters of course had to delete the section of the novel when she gets pregnant and has his child.Scandalous for the 1930s – the movie would surely have been a flop.

Although I personally felt that the rapport between Greta Garbo and Frederic March in the leads lacked a frisson, this is certainly an un-missable classic with solid performances all round from the cast. My personal favourite casting decision is Reginald Owen as Stiva. I do have a soft spot for Reginald Owen. He plays a perfectly wonderful rat in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. I also must admit that I have frankly never been a great fan of Garbo’s – too dour for my taste, I prefer women like Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, and Paulette Godard – but she did win me over in this film. A gloriously tragic performance that is neither under- nor overplayed.

Trivia:

I discovered this interesting coincidence when reading the biographies of the leading men in this film.

• Young Freddie Bartholomew (1924-1992) was born Frederic Llewellyn March but took the family name of the aunt that raised him.
• Frederic March (1897-1975) was born Ernest Frederick McInyre Bickel. For his stage name he took the shortened form of his mother’s maiden name “Marcher”.

©cmmhotes

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (掠奪された七人の花嫁, 1954)

Finally got round to seeing this classic Stanley Donen musical for the first time because of it's title -- I've been watching so many films involving the number seven this month, the kanji 七人 jumped out at me from the shelf of the video store. I do love musicals, but the premise of this one causes so many groans throughout viewing. The songs are catchy, but lyrics like "Bless your beautiful hide" (sung while on the prowl for a wife) would have been simply unbearable if it hadn’t been for Howard Keel’s wonderful, deep singing voice. It is a shame that MGM didn’t do more to promote his talent in the 1950s. Sexism aside, the dance numbers in this film are worth the price of rental alone. The acrobatics of the seven brothers during the barn raising sequences are truly inspired. I was amused by the decision to have all the brothers redheads and wearing brightly-coloured shirts in order to distinguish them from the grey suits of the townsmen. Even young men being dragged along to the cinema by their dates would enjoy the ridiculous amount of fight scenes. These would have been hard to bear if they hadn’t been staged in a comic way.

The only real disappointment was the obvious fakeness of the settings. I have since read that Stanley Donen was also disappointed not to have the budget to film on location. MGM was pouring all its money into 1954’s other big musical, Brigadoon, starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. I guess with the success of Singing in the Rain they decided to place their bets with Kelly’s star power combined with the power of Charisse’s $5 million legs. It’s too bad they didn’t credit give the director of Singing in the Rain as much credit as it’s stars, because Seven Brides is an infinitely more enjoyable picture than boring Brigadoon.

©cmmhotes