Gloria Swanson’s famous, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille,” in “Sunset Blvd.” (1950) gives us a slow, blurry and grotesque zoom-in on the tortured, dream-like expression of a woman gone mad. We already knew her trolley was a bit derailed early in the film when she is introduced as a lonely, self-important eccentric. The final close-up tells us nothing new about her, it just slashes away that discrete personal space between us and the unfortunate victim.
The extreme close-up to illustrate madness is also used very quickly, and most startlingly, in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932) when we are forced almost literally down the evil Count Zaroff’s throat as we stand, with Fay Wray at the top of the stone staircase of his fog-enveloped castle on the uncharted island, a place where he hunts humans. She is going off to bed, while her drunken sot of brother, played comically by Robert Armstrong, assures her that their host will look after him, “The Count’ll take care of me all right.”
“Indeed I will,” the Count, played by Leslie Banks, replies heavily as the tracking shot zooms effortlessly down those stairs from Miss Wray’s vantage point, and ours, and smacks into Mr. Banks’ hollow gaze. It is our first clue of his madness. Until now we have no reason to believe he is, like Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond, nothing more than a colorful eccentric. A colorful character, but not a loony. This close-up tells us there is something more sinister and off balance to him, and removes our comfortable distance from him.
Another even more brief, but insightful close-up indicating emotional disturbance is used, unexpectedly, in the holiday family favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). James Stewart, in deep trouble, wishes he was never born and Clarence the angel arranges it. Through a wild exploration of a hometown he no longer recognizes, confronting friends and family who no longer know him, we first have a hint that Stewart’s character George Bailey is losing it when he prays in the noisy bar and confesses to God, and to us, two important bits of information. One, he is “not a praying man” and two, “I’m at the end of my rope.”
Later, when his own mother, now a destitute and bitter widow in this bizarro world does not recognize him and refuses to shelter him, George runs away not more than a few steps down her sidewalk and runs smack into us. We do not come to him in his close-up, he comes to us, and stops, and slowly turns his head, searching from one direction to the other, and pauses a brief moment to look with horror into our faces. It is a personal moment for George, a Twilight Zone moment where his world is gone, and he is lost, and he is now a man on the very edge of sanity. His brings his horror to us, much as he has just brought it to the doorstep of his mother. She has sent him away, but what are we to do?
Unlike Count Zaroff and Norma Desmond, George Bailey’s madness is brief, a nightmare that clears and we have a happy ending. The rest of the film is long shots of George in his happy environment, his town’s streets, his big old house. He is always with other people, often a lot of them in each scene. The close-up he shares only with us.
Movie madness can often take the form of wild ranting and aggressive behavior, but it is ironically most chilling, and most personal, when it is still, silent, and very close.
This blog entry is part of The Eyes Have It Close-up Blog-a-Thon at The House Next Door. Have a look at this website for more interesting blogs on the art of the movie close-up.
Showing posts with label Fay Wray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fay Wray. Show all posts
Monday, October 15, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Robert Armstrong
Robert Armstrong was the kind of character actor who left an impression. He seemed to invent types, rather than play them. Carl Denham, the pushy, greedy, but always imaginative impresario who dragged King Kong back from the South Pacific to exploit as entertainment, and Max O’Hara, who tried to work similar magic with “Mighty Joe Young” were fellows acutely identified with the nimble talking Armstrong.
A much less enterprising, but still out for number one kind of guy was his character in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932). The brother of the character played by Fay Wray, who later played his discovery Ann Darrow in “King Kong,” Martin Trowbridge was killed off early in the movie but still managed to stand out as one of the highlights of the film. He is a drunken fool, who disgusts the disciplined if utterly crazy host Count Zaroff with his dissolute ways and casual attitude toward hunting. He invites Zaroff, played memorably by Leslie Banks (see entry March 29th ) to go hunting in the Catskills, where the guides “will make the deers behave.”
Mr. Armstrong’s acting career began when left college for vaudeville and a touring stock company, and eventually made it to Hollywood just in time for the waning days of silent film. His smart aleck snappy delivery and comic timing was perfect for sound film and he made the transition easily, though “King Kong” was probably the most notable role he had. He never got out of B-movie parts, though he played a role against James Cagney in “Blood On the Sun” (1945), an interesting look at Japanese military in the days just before Pearl Harbor. Armstrong improbably played Colonel Hideki Tojo, but through this and other roles, and his eventual TV guest spots, one gets the feeling that the intrepid and exasperating spirit of Carl Denham never left him, and was always somehow just under the surface. It was a role he was born to play.
A much less enterprising, but still out for number one kind of guy was his character in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932). The brother of the character played by Fay Wray, who later played his discovery Ann Darrow in “King Kong,” Martin Trowbridge was killed off early in the movie but still managed to stand out as one of the highlights of the film. He is a drunken fool, who disgusts the disciplined if utterly crazy host Count Zaroff with his dissolute ways and casual attitude toward hunting. He invites Zaroff, played memorably by Leslie Banks (see entry March 29th ) to go hunting in the Catskills, where the guides “will make the deers behave.”
Mr. Armstrong’s acting career began when left college for vaudeville and a touring stock company, and eventually made it to Hollywood just in time for the waning days of silent film. His smart aleck snappy delivery and comic timing was perfect for sound film and he made the transition easily, though “King Kong” was probably the most notable role he had. He never got out of B-movie parts, though he played a role against James Cagney in “Blood On the Sun” (1945), an interesting look at Japanese military in the days just before Pearl Harbor. Armstrong improbably played Colonel Hideki Tojo, but through this and other roles, and his eventual TV guest spots, one gets the feeling that the intrepid and exasperating spirit of Carl Denham never left him, and was always somehow just under the surface. It was a role he was born to play.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
King Kong - Part 2
See part 1 of King Kong here.
The interesting paradox here is the film presents not just an implausible horror story about a giant gorilla loose in New York City. Except for the fact that King Kong is so large, everything else in the movie was realistic for its time. A good part of this world was still uncharted in those days. When the United States went island hopping after the Japanese Empire in World War II, most of those islands were previously unknown to us. As author William Manchester noted in his narrative history, “The Glory and the Dream: (Bantam, NY, 1975, pp.266-267), “The U.S. Navy started the war with obsolete eighteenth-century charts…the Marines had to survey King Solomon’s Isles as they went along…Most of what the public did know about the Pacific had been invented by B movie scriptwriters.” That might be astounding to believe in today’s world when people who travel no further than the grocery store have a GPS unit in their SUVs.
Carl Denham’s world was the world of real-life adventurer Frank “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” Buck. It was the world of real-life wildlife photographers and naturalists Osa and Martin Johnson. It was the world when boys read the adventures of Jack London and were transported to a world far more dangerous and imaginative than any young boy today playing with a video game. Only, Jack London was real.
Another paradox is that what is unreal about the film, i.e. King Kong himself, which we know is not a real gorilla but a series of models, mechanics and stop-motion animation, even this unreality is successful and appropriate. Monsters aren’t meant to be realistic. The more fantastic they are, the more horrible they are. Monsters are largely creatures of our imagination. If we rationalize them, they lose their mystique.
Kong holds Miss Wray like a doll. Oh, wait, that is a doll. It is remarkable that Miss Wray never played a scene with him, only pantomimed against a plain backdrop.
The dinosaurs Kong must fight are also creatures of the imagination. Though we know they existed, we have never seen a photo of one. The Brontosaurus lifts his head eerily out of the water and he attacks the men on the expedition, chomping on the body of one and tossing it away. His swamp seems to be the same Fog Hollow of “The Most Dangerous Game” only there is no Zaroff with a rifle. When Kong fights the T-Rex over Fay Wray, it is as exciting as a match between James J. Braddock and Max Baer. Kong fights off a snake as well, which nearly chokes him, and a pterodactyl. In all this we see that he is trying to protect Miss Wray. His struggles earns our respect and we begin to wonder for the first time not what will happen to Fay Wray, but what will happen to him?
All through his battles we see his terrible rage and his unexpected tenderness. We’re still not sure of what he is a capable of doing to Miss Wray. Beyond tugging a part of her gauzy dress off (a bit of pre-Code sauciness), we are not sure what danger he represents to her. He did put a native in his mouth, but spit him right out, so we don’t even really know if he’s carnivorous. Gorillas usually aren’t, but this isn’t a nature film.
Finally of course, Kong is captured and put on stage, where the marquee tells us the tickets are $20. Pretty steep when you could have seen Helen Hayes on Broadway for around $6. But then, she was only five feet tall.
There is continuous action in the movie, we are hammered with it, and with the Beauty and the Beast message. Lots of extras get work that day in the New York scenes, where Kong plays to a packed house, and then escapes and steps on, grabs, flings, and scares the socks off everybody. He swats their trains, climbs their buildings, and in a sickening foreshadowing of what the now crazed Kong could do to Fay Wray, he pulls an unknown woman out of a hotel window and dashes her to the ground to her death. He then finds Fay, and grabs her.
You know where they end up. Another paradox is that the symbol used to illustrate man’s pinnacle of modern achievement, the Empire State Building, was only two years old when this film was made, but it was buzzed by comparatively anachronistic World War I biplanes. In another eight years, we would be going to war again only with B-52 bombers, a B-25 Mitchell would become embedded in the Empire State Building in a fog in 1945.
“Confound this fog,” Carl Denham had said on ship. The Empire State Building was real. The B-25 was real, and fourteen people were killed. Yet when we think of the Empire State Building we think of a fictional monster and a different tragedy, as enduring a symbol of our innocence more than of the terrors of our imagination. And that is the reality to which we choose to cling.
The interesting paradox here is the film presents not just an implausible horror story about a giant gorilla loose in New York City. Except for the fact that King Kong is so large, everything else in the movie was realistic for its time. A good part of this world was still uncharted in those days. When the United States went island hopping after the Japanese Empire in World War II, most of those islands were previously unknown to us. As author William Manchester noted in his narrative history, “The Glory and the Dream: (Bantam, NY, 1975, pp.266-267), “The U.S. Navy started the war with obsolete eighteenth-century charts…the Marines had to survey King Solomon’s Isles as they went along…Most of what the public did know about the Pacific had been invented by B movie scriptwriters.” That might be astounding to believe in today’s world when people who travel no further than the grocery store have a GPS unit in their SUVs.
Carl Denham’s world was the world of real-life adventurer Frank “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” Buck. It was the world of real-life wildlife photographers and naturalists Osa and Martin Johnson. It was the world when boys read the adventures of Jack London and were transported to a world far more dangerous and imaginative than any young boy today playing with a video game. Only, Jack London was real.
Another paradox is that what is unreal about the film, i.e. King Kong himself, which we know is not a real gorilla but a series of models, mechanics and stop-motion animation, even this unreality is successful and appropriate. Monsters aren’t meant to be realistic. The more fantastic they are, the more horrible they are. Monsters are largely creatures of our imagination. If we rationalize them, they lose their mystique.
Kong holds Miss Wray like a doll. Oh, wait, that is a doll. It is remarkable that Miss Wray never played a scene with him, only pantomimed against a plain backdrop.
The dinosaurs Kong must fight are also creatures of the imagination. Though we know they existed, we have never seen a photo of one. The Brontosaurus lifts his head eerily out of the water and he attacks the men on the expedition, chomping on the body of one and tossing it away. His swamp seems to be the same Fog Hollow of “The Most Dangerous Game” only there is no Zaroff with a rifle. When Kong fights the T-Rex over Fay Wray, it is as exciting as a match between James J. Braddock and Max Baer. Kong fights off a snake as well, which nearly chokes him, and a pterodactyl. In all this we see that he is trying to protect Miss Wray. His struggles earns our respect and we begin to wonder for the first time not what will happen to Fay Wray, but what will happen to him?
All through his battles we see his terrible rage and his unexpected tenderness. We’re still not sure of what he is a capable of doing to Miss Wray. Beyond tugging a part of her gauzy dress off (a bit of pre-Code sauciness), we are not sure what danger he represents to her. He did put a native in his mouth, but spit him right out, so we don’t even really know if he’s carnivorous. Gorillas usually aren’t, but this isn’t a nature film.
Finally of course, Kong is captured and put on stage, where the marquee tells us the tickets are $20. Pretty steep when you could have seen Helen Hayes on Broadway for around $6. But then, she was only five feet tall.
There is continuous action in the movie, we are hammered with it, and with the Beauty and the Beast message. Lots of extras get work that day in the New York scenes, where Kong plays to a packed house, and then escapes and steps on, grabs, flings, and scares the socks off everybody. He swats their trains, climbs their buildings, and in a sickening foreshadowing of what the now crazed Kong could do to Fay Wray, he pulls an unknown woman out of a hotel window and dashes her to the ground to her death. He then finds Fay, and grabs her.
You know where they end up. Another paradox is that the symbol used to illustrate man’s pinnacle of modern achievement, the Empire State Building, was only two years old when this film was made, but it was buzzed by comparatively anachronistic World War I biplanes. In another eight years, we would be going to war again only with B-52 bombers, a B-25 Mitchell would become embedded in the Empire State Building in a fog in 1945.
“Confound this fog,” Carl Denham had said on ship. The Empire State Building was real. The B-25 was real, and fourteen people were killed. Yet when we think of the Empire State Building we think of a fictional monster and a different tragedy, as enduring a symbol of our innocence more than of the terrors of our imagination. And that is the reality to which we choose to cling.
Monday, September 17, 2007
King Kong - Part 1
David O. Selznick, who produced such successful, but overladen hits like “Gone With the Wind” (1939) and “Since You Went Away” (1944) also produced a much leaner “King Kong” (1933), which has the distinction of being remarkably fast paced, imaginative, and as evocative of a place that never existed as any film of a place that did.
Reckless, driven movie director Carl Denham, played by Robert Armstrong, is the film’s catalyst. He is Ahab to Kong’s Moby Dick, but Carl Denham is less righteous and haunted than Captain Ahab. He is really more like Daffy Duck, pursuing a mound of jewels with dollar signs in his eyes. Mr. Armstrong gets to deliver the famous last lines of the film, “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.” But he also gets other lines just as telling of his character and of the Depression era of this film. Warned that he must be careful with a movie actress in the wilds of his location shoot, Denham responds,
“I suppose there’s no danger in New York? Listen, there are dozens of girls in this town that are in more danger than they’ll ever see with me.”
Denham laments that his true-life adventure films are dismissed by the Hollywood critics. “Isn’t there any romance or adventure in the world without having a flapper in it?”
Interesting use of the word “flapper” carried over from the 1920s. Denham goes first to one jungle to find the girl for his film, New York City, and we see Times Square lit up at night. We meet the lovely Fay Wray whose haunting dark eyes explore the camera’s gaze from under the brim of a battered cloche hat.
“I’m on the level. No funny business,” Armstrong as Denham tells Miss Wray, and she, and we, immediately accept that he is being truthful. The amazing thing is, he is being truthful. He is a man obsessively wedded to his work. If he were not, he could never bring back the Eighth Wonder of the World.
For a love interest, Miss Wray is given instead the wooden Bruce Cabot, who is at first brusque and falls in love reluctantly. It’s nothing personal he tells her, it’s just that she’s a woman. We get the standard “Terry and the Pirates” stock images of a stereotyped Chinese galley cook, and Denham on board ship in a yachting cap and a white suit, to be replaced by a tropical kit, and a slouch hat that make him look a cross between Indiana Jones, Curious George’s Man in the Yellow Hat and Christiane Amanpour reporting from the field. But this is quite wonderful in a way, because this is Depression-era South Seas adventure, and if Denham didn’t look like The Great White Hunter, we’d be wondering exactly what he was doing there.
I get a kick where after their first wary encounter with the natives of the lost island, Denham flippantly whistles a chorus of “The St. Louis Blues.” And he remarks at their torches lighting up the black night in their ceremonial dance to pay homage to Kong, “Looks like the night before election.”
He has some terrific sets to get lost in, mostly left over from the previous year’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and Miss Wray, truly the best screamer in Hollywood as his bait for Kong. When she practices screaming in terror for Denham’s screen test of her on deck, we get an ominous sense of dread when Bruce Cabot’s character wonders, “What’s he think she’s really gonna see?”
See Part 2 of King Kong here.
Reckless, driven movie director Carl Denham, played by Robert Armstrong, is the film’s catalyst. He is Ahab to Kong’s Moby Dick, but Carl Denham is less righteous and haunted than Captain Ahab. He is really more like Daffy Duck, pursuing a mound of jewels with dollar signs in his eyes. Mr. Armstrong gets to deliver the famous last lines of the film, “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.” But he also gets other lines just as telling of his character and of the Depression era of this film. Warned that he must be careful with a movie actress in the wilds of his location shoot, Denham responds,
“I suppose there’s no danger in New York? Listen, there are dozens of girls in this town that are in more danger than they’ll ever see with me.”
Denham laments that his true-life adventure films are dismissed by the Hollywood critics. “Isn’t there any romance or adventure in the world without having a flapper in it?”
Interesting use of the word “flapper” carried over from the 1920s. Denham goes first to one jungle to find the girl for his film, New York City, and we see Times Square lit up at night. We meet the lovely Fay Wray whose haunting dark eyes explore the camera’s gaze from under the brim of a battered cloche hat.
“I’m on the level. No funny business,” Armstrong as Denham tells Miss Wray, and she, and we, immediately accept that he is being truthful. The amazing thing is, he is being truthful. He is a man obsessively wedded to his work. If he were not, he could never bring back the Eighth Wonder of the World.
For a love interest, Miss Wray is given instead the wooden Bruce Cabot, who is at first brusque and falls in love reluctantly. It’s nothing personal he tells her, it’s just that she’s a woman. We get the standard “Terry and the Pirates” stock images of a stereotyped Chinese galley cook, and Denham on board ship in a yachting cap and a white suit, to be replaced by a tropical kit, and a slouch hat that make him look a cross between Indiana Jones, Curious George’s Man in the Yellow Hat and Christiane Amanpour reporting from the field. But this is quite wonderful in a way, because this is Depression-era South Seas adventure, and if Denham didn’t look like The Great White Hunter, we’d be wondering exactly what he was doing there.
I get a kick where after their first wary encounter with the natives of the lost island, Denham flippantly whistles a chorus of “The St. Louis Blues.” And he remarks at their torches lighting up the black night in their ceremonial dance to pay homage to Kong, “Looks like the night before election.”
He has some terrific sets to get lost in, mostly left over from the previous year’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and Miss Wray, truly the best screamer in Hollywood as his bait for Kong. When she practices screaming in terror for Denham’s screen test of her on deck, we get an ominous sense of dread when Bruce Cabot’s character wonders, “What’s he think she’s really gonna see?”
See Part 2 of King Kong here.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Fay Wray - 100th Anniversary
Saturday marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Fay Wray. Miss Wray holds a place of warm regard among fans of classic films, unusual for someone whose career was brief and made up almost entirely of B-movies. “King Kong” (1933) was her claim to fame, and throughout her long life she bemusedly gave credit to the big gorilla for making her famous.
Miss Wray began in silent films in the 1920s, in bit parts as maids and shop girls, and eventually appeared in many westerns as the damsel in the distress. She played the damsel with spirit, however. She also came to known as the “Queen of Scream” for her ability to belt out a blood curdling screech at the first sign of danger.
Her characters in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932) (see entry March 29, 2007) and in “King Kong” were spunky girls, ready for adventure, but invariably terrorized by forces beyond her control. One was a madman and one was a big ape. The big ape was actually nice to her, but that didn’t keep her from screaming every time he tried to pick her up. Maybe he needed a better pick up line.
They were striking movies, and Miss Wray played a most human character in the middle of the impossible, standing in for us. We were anxious for her. Now, we cannot help but remember her fondly.
After her death in 2004, the Empire State Building, where her boyfriend King Kong toppled to his death, dimmed its lights in her honor. How many Oscar-winning top film stars were afforded such respect as this B-movie actress?
The 2005 remake of “King Kong” was dedicated in memory of Fay Wray, and she is referred to early in the film as one of the actresses Carl Denham, now played by Jack Black, wishes he could have gotten for his new project. Her career was evidently longer and carried more weight than even Miss Wray realized.
Miss Wray began in silent films in the 1920s, in bit parts as maids and shop girls, and eventually appeared in many westerns as the damsel in the distress. She played the damsel with spirit, however. She also came to known as the “Queen of Scream” for her ability to belt out a blood curdling screech at the first sign of danger.
Her characters in “The Most Dangerous Game” (1932) (see entry March 29, 2007) and in “King Kong” were spunky girls, ready for adventure, but invariably terrorized by forces beyond her control. One was a madman and one was a big ape. The big ape was actually nice to her, but that didn’t keep her from screaming every time he tried to pick her up. Maybe he needed a better pick up line.
They were striking movies, and Miss Wray played a most human character in the middle of the impossible, standing in for us. We were anxious for her. Now, we cannot help but remember her fondly.
After her death in 2004, the Empire State Building, where her boyfriend King Kong toppled to his death, dimmed its lights in her honor. How many Oscar-winning top film stars were afforded such respect as this B-movie actress?
The 2005 remake of “King Kong” was dedicated in memory of Fay Wray, and she is referred to early in the film as one of the actresses Carl Denham, now played by Jack Black, wishes he could have gotten for his new project. Her career was evidently longer and carried more weight than even Miss Wray realized.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A Bit More on The Music Box Steps
A bit more on “The Music Box Steps” (see March 6, 2007).
The gag of lugging heavy stuff up terrace stairs which defy LA’s sometimes surprising terrain had been used before Laurel and Hardy took a crack at it in “The Music Box.” The same steps were used in “Ice Cold Cocos” (1926) directed by Del Lord, who also directed “The Music Box,” and in “Isn’t Life Terrible” (1925) with Fay Wray and Charley Chase. Lord also directed the Stooges’ “An Ache in Every Stake,” clearly never tiring of the stairs gag. Perhaps those earlier films led to using the gag over and over again, but I wonder which came first for Laurel & Hardy and The Three Stooges on their own imposing set of stairs: the idea that there were some long steep steps in town that would make a great gag, or the idea that they were to lift something heavy up a set of stairs, and where could they find such stairs to use? The chicken or the egg? There is an excellent discussion of this in an article “The Music Box” by Richard W. Bann posted on the Laurel and Hardy website: www.Laurel-and-Hardy.com.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Most Dangerous Game - 1932
The Most Dangerous Game (1932) makes the point that “less is more” in a film dependent on a little bit of psychology, a little bit of horror, a little bit of vodka, and a memorable journey in only 63 minutes.
The story of shipwreck survivors hunted for sport on the island “no bigger than a deer park” owned by a madman is by now well known and has been resurrected on several occasions.
It’s hard to discern just what alchemy provides the irresistible quality of adventure in this short movie, with a setting like a Terry and the Pirates cartoon. The hunter’s horn theme haunts the film, but what defines the study of hunters and the hunted, of civilization and savagery is illustrated in the most simple ways. The survivors share cocktails as they recount the harrowing tales of their shipwreck experiences to their mysterious but charming host, Count Zaroff, who entertains them with panache and dignity in his evening clothes. He is well educated, well read, and plays classical music on a grand piano in the great hall of his medieval fortress.
The movie really belongs to Leslie Banks, in only his second film, as Count Zaroff, who masterfully seduces the funny buffoon played by Robert Armstrong, the good guy and fellow hunter Joel McCrea, and the lovely Fay Wray, and most especially, the audience. Miss Wray probably owned a patent on the damsel in distress role. Her trying to warn McCrea’s character of her suspicions about Count Zaroff, as she purposely knocks over a drink onto McCrea, “I didn’t realize the DANGER,” is suspenseful, but futile.
What I love best about the film are the small touches used to illustrate big things and big ideas. McCrea discovers the depth of Zaroff’s madness and attempts to escape, but not before he takes the time to put on his tie. He is civilized, after all. When he meets Wray’s character to sneak away from their captivity, she is wearing an evening gown. Evidently no tea-length day dress will do. This is going to be an heroic escape, and they have to look their best.
Actually, McCrea’s tie comes in handy later as a trip line for his laboriously constructed Malay Dead Fall trap, which doesn’t work. Other traps fail to catch Zaroff as well, and one wonders if Miss Wray’s method of just screaming and running isn’t the best line of defense. However, soon their faces are shining with sweat, their clothes are dirty and torn, which makes a terrific contrast to their natty appearance earlier in the film. We believe their wretchedness more than if they had started out in combat gear.
The terrific sets are evocative of a time and place lost to civilization, and many of the sets were used on RKO’s King Kong, which also starred Wray and Armstrong, released the following year. It was the Depression, after all -- waste not, want not.
The danger for McCrea is death, and for Fay Wray, rape. As Zaroff bellows his mantra, “Kill, then love. When you have known that, you have known ecstasy.” It is a perverted philosophy, but deliciously believable in a character who dresses in white tie and tails, strokes the nasty scar on his forehead (which is intended to indicate to us his madness), though in this black and white film, no blood is ever required. We know the stakes. We don’t need to be hit over the head. We hang on for the ride, and the surprising ending.
******
Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally. Her new book, a collection of posts from this blog - Hollywood Fights Fascism - is available here on Amazon.
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