The Adventures of Mark Twain - 1944

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) features a central figure so familiar as to be legendary, and the film leans heavy on legend.  We mark tomorrow’s anniversary of Mark Twain’s birth.

What we discover about Mark Twain through this movie is not so much facts about his life (particularly when the facts are toyed with and not in the order of their appearance), but rather how he fits into, and even represents, the grand mosaic of 19^th century American culture.  This is a rich story of a vibrant era. 

We are also treated to the rarely-presented world of history through literature. 

Bret Harte, William Dean Howells, Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Rudyard Kipling all parade before us.  They are cameos, but they are presented as giants.  I particularly like that the film expects us to know who they are. 

A modern film might throw the answers to an ignorant audience the way a fellow student slips test answers to a pal beside him, which is ignominious, and unflattering both to ourselves and the great writers.

Mark Twain’s greatest struggle, apart from money worries, is to measure up to these literary lions.  That he finds his own place in popular literature and that the 20^th century lauds him with movies and stage plays and television programs, and does not do so for the aforementioned first-string players — this would astonish Twain more than anyone.

This is a film more of style than of substance, and for those dismissive of it I would suggest they consider that in classic film, a biopic is less like a Ken Burns documentary and more like an interpretive dance.

Yes, I am being facetious.

The movie is a series of events like tall tales, and even the introduction to the film cheekily warns us not to be too judgmental.  First we are on a hill watching Halley’sComet awe and terrify the townspeople as Samuel Langhorne Clemens is born into this world.  He will joke repeatedly throughout his life that he came in with the comet and will surely leave the earth when the comet is due to return in the next century.  In a life of quips and witticisms, and wry observations, that he actually did die on the occasion when Halley’s returned in 1910 is probably the biggest joke of all.

But a lot happened in the meantime, and the movie is stuffed with scenes that roll out a long carpet of experiences and adventures.  The director plunks us down in the 19^th century with beautifully staged settings, many of them artful miniatures, of the majestic Mississippi, its riverbanks bathed in moonlight.  We see the long gambling salon on the riverboat (too long to be realistic, but this isn’t a documentary, it’s a pop-up book), and the lordly riverboats that young Sam so admires.

We know he took his eventual pen name, “Mark Twain” from the call of the riverboat men who are testing the depths of the water for channels deep enough for the riverboats to pass safely.  Two fathoms is a safe depth, so when they mark “twain” on the measure, it is two fathoms.  The sing-song call, “MARR-R-K…T-W-A-A-A-I-I-N-N!” is used stirringly at dramatic moments, and is replicated in notes on the musical score of the film, a clever reprise.

Unlike most movies about great men, Mark Twain is not shown as a man born to greatness.  On the contrary, he’s a stumblebum who runs off to join a riverboat crew because he can’t stand working in his brother’s print shop setting type by hand.  (His aversion will later move him to invest, disastrously, in an early mechanical typesetter.)  He runs off to the western mining camps to get rich, and doesn’t.  He delivers a stand-up routine at a dinner for the aforementioned literary giants, and, trying too hard to be funny, insults them in a kind of Friar’s roast.  His act tanks and we see his panic as he makes a fool of himself.  We begin to wonder if this guy will ever do anything right.

His one stroke of luck seems to be catching a glimpse of a fellow traveler’s photo of a beloved sister.  Twain falls in the love with the picture, and eventually the woman, who as his wife will help him achieve lasting success as a writer.

Twain has a lower estimation of his talents, and wants to write something great and important, but the audience sees, even if Twain does not, that the body of his work adds up to a chronicling of America in its most expansive, confident, chest-thumping and stumblebum charm.

Fredric March, who we last saw here in I Married a Witch (1942), is the adult Mark Twain, in a spot-on performance.  It can’t be easy creating a character so well known, and relying in good part on mimicry and imitation.  It’s a tightrope to walk.  With the help of makeup man Perc Westmore, Mr. March is the very image of Mark Twain.  One of the fine achievements of this movie is the way the characters, Twain in particular, age so gradually and so realistically we may feel amazed by the end of the film that so much time has passed.  The aging of characters in other films of this era is usually something of a jolt, and artificial-looking. 

Alexis Smith plays his wife, and though we may note it’s another woman-behind-the-great-man role where she has little challenge, it’s still a nice piece for her.  This is a much softer role in contrast to the sophisticates she often played, and with little makeup in the early scenes, her natural beauty is quite lovely, more stunning than her glamour roles.

Miss Smith is a one-woman cheerleading squad for Mark Twain, but in real life Mrs. Clemens did more than just encourage him.  She actually edited most of his work and he came to rely on her judgment.

Alan Hale is along for the ride as Twain’s prospector pal in his patented jovial scamp gig.  John Carradine gets a marvelous brief scene as the writer Bret Harte who, in the famed contest between the jumping frogs, exhorts his frog, “Daniel Webster” with the plea, “If you love me…”  And repeated calls, “Flies!  Flies!” to encourage the magnificent amphibian to hop.  I don’t know if Mr. Carradine ever played a scene so intense with a human.

Donald Crisp is at Twain’s elbow as his manager, who also gets the impressive aging treatment.  Walter Hampden is great as Alexis Smith’s disapproving father in a scene where he tries to remove Twain from his home.

C. Aubrey Smith delivers a magnificent address at the end of the film when Mark Twain is honored at Oxford.  His scene is a standout.  That beautifully craggy face and his meticulous speech.

Joyce Reynolds, who we last saw here in The Constant Nymph (1943), plays Twain’s daughter, Clara, horrified at spotting the return of Halley’s Comet.

A few scenes of note:  I love when the teenaged Samuel Clemens is getting his first lesson in piloting a riverboat by grumpy Robert Barrat.  Dickie Jones is the youth, who has very few lines, but the scene is marvelous.  It runs quite a long time, with close-ups on the boy’s face as he nervously reacts to the dangers of the river and Mr. Barrat’s constant barking at him. 

He’s shaking in his shoes, and when at last he manages to pull into a safe channel and the crewman sings, “M-A-A-R-R-RK…T-W-A-A-I-I-N-N-N!” we see the tears glisten in his dark velvet eyes with wonder and gratitude, and love of this river.  I don’t suppose it’s necessary to the story as a whole, but I imagine director Irving Rapper kept the attention focused on Dickie Jones for so long because he fell in love with the boy like I did.  I think it’s one of the most powerful close-ups I’ve ever seen.

The anxious expression in his soft boy’s face, on the verge of manhood.  We last saw Dickie as a much younger child here in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) where he played the congressional page.

The scene where Mark Twain does one of his very first public speaking jobs.  Look at the hall filled with extras, and look at their costumes.  Such attention to the style and setting of an era is wonderful.  There don’t seem to be many shortcuts taken, as we sometimes see in other films where the sets or costumes, or hair is judged by the studio evidently as being “close enough.”

We may gag at Twain’s grotesque, “well done, good and faithful servant” joke, and note how African Americans, particularly the unfortunate Willie Best as a butler, get the stereotypical treatment in this film.  However, there is an aspect to their presence in this movie that I admire, and that is that they are indeed present.  We see them on hill watching Halley’s Comet, and as passengers on the riverboat.  They work on the river, and live on the river, and they are the boys on the raft.  If their story is not told yet, at least we see they are not invisible.  We see they are part of the mosaic that makes up America.  For Hollywood at this time, this is something.

We get a glimpse of Mark Twain’s house in Hartford.  See my post on my New England Travels blog for more on his home, which still stands a museum today.  This weekend, another actor famed for portraying Mark Twain, Hal Holbrook, will be honored at the Mark Twain House when a hall is dedicated in his name. 

As Mark Twain’s life unfolds it gets busier.  He and his wife lose a baby son.  They have three daughters.  He travels the world to earn money to pay back debts.  He saves the fortunes of Ulysses S. Grant when the former Union general and President is dying of cancer, and struggles to write his memoirs to provide for his family.  Twain, in his own fledgling company, publishes them.

March has a moving scene when he sings “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” at the piano as his wife lay dying.  Decades later in an interview Alexis Smith noted that Fredric March’s work in this movie was underrated.  In an article at the time of filming, she commented that she had a hard time, even though she was supposed to be dead, to keep from peeking at March to watch him in his scene.

Back to the pop-up book nature of the movie — the scenes where tiny figures of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim superimposed on the written page, or revisit Twain at the moment of his death and take him by the hand to a distant sunset are imagery we would not see in a biopic today. 

But this is a tale, not a documentary.  It captures the mood and the tragedy, and optimism of this man’s era.  We may be witnessing more Currier and Ives than Vital Records, but that is the nature of interpretive dance.

Remember also that during World War II the movies were reaching back to a comfortable American image to appeal to a frightened audience.  Twain’s speech, “our tolerance will never become indifference, and our freedom never come license.  Let’s respect each other’s rights…” reflects not only his progressive views, as cantankerously as he sometimes phrased them, but also speaks to a nervous America on the precipice of doom.

For more on The Adventures of Mark Twain have a look at Cliff Aliperti’s two posts on his terrific Immortal Ephemera blog here and here.  The movie was filmed in 1942, but not released until 1944.  For a more detailed explanation why, have a look at Harold Sherman’s “Behind theScreenplay” here.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) - Part 2

We have stories within stories, where Esmeralda is loved by the poet Gringoire, but loves the soldier Phoebus instead. When Phoebus is killed by Frollo, Esmeralda is brought to trial for the crime. We see further evidence about the cruelty of 15th century superstition when she is tortured into confessing, and when the King, meaning kindly to help her, insists on a trial by ordeal instead, wherein she must pick the correct dagger while blindfolded to be found innocent. She chooses incorrectly, and therefore she must be guilty. The King is sorry, but whatever his fascination for the printing press and the education of his people, he is still a man of his times who believes in such things as trial by ordeal. It is a telling thing that her condemnation is read aloud in Latin, which the common people attending the trial do not understand.

The Archdeacon, a kindly and intelligent figure, and Frollo’s brother, is played by Walter Hampden. The character is not originally found in Hugo’s novel, but was added as a result of Hollywood’s Code of the day that the clergy not be depicted as evil or fraudulent. With the Church abetting, willingly or unwilling, so much of the destructive superstition of the day, we need to see at least one representative who is a decent person. Hollywood evidentially felt that rounded things out a bit.

With Esmeralda imprisoned, the printing press comes to the fore again as Gringoire uses the forces of the printing press and public opinion to free her, but Frollo orders the press destroyed, calling it the ultimate evil. Others in Europe of 1939 also feared a free press.

Perhaps one of the most stunning scenes in motion pictures is when Quasimodo scrambles off the heights of the Cathedral, and grabbing a rope, swings down to the public gallows in the square and lifts Esmeralda to safety, climbing up to the bell tower as an unseen chorus erupts into a soaring hymn of “Hallelujah” and he lifts her high and screams, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”

The Church provides sanctuary to political prisoners, even if it winks at torture and trial by ordeal.

It is not until the quiet moment when Quasimodo speaks with Esmeralda, now safely living in the bell tower, we see how tortured a soul he really is. Mr. Laughton’s ability to suspend our belief under what must have been pounds of makeup is extraordinary, and we see through the disfigured body and the grotesque face to the heart of this unhappy young man. Her presence brings him great happiness, and yet he confesses until he saw her he did not know how truly ugly he was. She breaks his heart, just by being someone so far above him in perfection. How universal in this gut wrenching emotion among the handicapped, the different, the outcasts. Laughton captures it cruelly, perfectly.

Now forces are at work that bring the nobility, the king, the beggars, the thieves, the Church, the courts, and the printing press to a violent clash. Gringoire finally gets out a pamphlet to demand Esmeralda’s release and to accuse the nobility of their crimes. The King is impressed, “This bold new way of appealing by printed petition is creating a kind of public opinion that is forcing decisions even on kings.” What might his reaction be to the Internet?

When the mob attacks Notre Dame, Quasimodo becomes an army of one and fights them off with stones, building materials, and a vat of boiling lead. He rescues Esmeralda in a terrifically acrobatic and suspense fight in the bell tower with Frollo, but his reward is only loneliness when Esmeralda leaves with Gringoire.

“Why was I not made of stone like thee?” Quasimodo asked the grotesque gargoyle he clings to, and we are left feeling equally bereft as triumphant when the camera pulls back in a spectacular shot of Notre Dame, in all its architectural detail, to a further chorus of hallelujahs. Quasimodo becomes so small as to be indistinguishable from the gargoyles, and the massive cathedral overshadows all, all of the public square, all Paris, over all the entire 15th century.

Sabrina (1954) - Part 2

When Sabrina attends the party in probably the most fantastic gown ever created for the movies, the butler, played by Emory Parnell, gushingly brings a report back to the rest of the staff on how she’s doing, “The prettiest girl, the prettiest dress, the belle of the ball… and they way looked into each other eyes!” The Hubert de Givenchy gown, burned into our retinas, is a silk organdie with black floral patterns, a straight skirt with an overskirt open in front, and a long train. It is the best dress ever made, and Hepburn wears it with the talent of a virtuoso.

A special Olympic medal should have been given to Mr. Holden for his held-for-a-moment-in-mid-air leap over the patio wall to greet Hepburn, who, rather than running to him, waits like princess for him to run to her.

Miss Hepburn’s easy, beaming smile and graceful confidence tell us she is indeed the belle of the ball, even to the point of being oblivious of David’s discomfort at having to introduce her to his mother, and his mother’s suggestion she cook for them sometime. The chauffeur’s daughter cannot be put in her place, not anymore. She is above that.

Holden does a great comic bit when he sits on the champagne glasses, and Hampden’s frustration at the sudden and inexplicable romance between his already engaged to be married son and the chauffeur’s daughter explodes when he is reminded to be more liberal because it is the 20th century.

“Twentieth Century! I could pick a century out of a hat blindfolded and get a better one.”

Hepburn sings a dreamy chorus of “La Vie en Rose” in the car with Bogart, not as if she is performing but only absentmindedly, as if she is thinking of something else. It is a wonderfully quiet moment. She is comfortable enough to discuss with Bogart about life and love, and tweaks his hat. There is a moment when they return from sailing that she wears his coat over her shoulders and he carries her shoes that is sublimely intimate in a way she never achieves intimacy with the cocky and self-assured younger brother who regards her as a conquest.

Bogart’s flirtation-that-is-not-flirtation of remarking, “I wish I were my brother” is the capper to his character development. He says it only as a ruse to romance Sabrina, but there is truth to it as well. In many respects, he wishes he were David, but wishing that is as impossible as wishing he were younger. It cannot be. He does not dare wish she loved him. He wishes only that he were David, so that she would love him.

By now Sabrina’s character development hits the fan. She is falling for older brother Linus and tries desperately to stop herself. To the point of arriving at his New York office for date in her capri pants. Who but Hepburn would even think of wearing capri pants in a film at that date, let alone appear as stylish as she does?

At the end, Sabrina realizes with a burst of enthusiasm that she does prefer Bogart and wants him to take her to Paris, brushing away his reticence with a warm embrace and an ecstatic smile and a playful, “They’ll say I’m too young for you. There’ll be an awful scandal and the market will go down!” By now, Bogart wants to release her for her own good.

Sabrina’s father tries to put a moral on the story with, “Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich.”

We have our happy ending of course, but I wish that the ending of the original play written by Samuel Taylor had been used for this film. In the play, Sabrina’s father has made wise investments enough so that Sabrina is an heiress to a fortune, and can come to Linus as an equal partner with her own separate finances. That perhaps is too modern a thought for a 1950s Cinderella story, or someone felt so at the time.

Finances, so it is reported, are a major reason for marriages that fail. So much is made of the link between wealth and romance in this film, it would have been a striking end to have Hepburn’s and Bogart’s wistful empathy for each other have the bite of a little financial savvy and even competition added to it.

That's it for this week. See you Monday.

Walter Hampden

Walter Hampden has a great role in “Sabrina” (1954) as the exasperated father of the Larrabee brothers. The scene where he struggles to get an olive out of a jar is pure screwball comedy, and not something you’d expect from someone who played “Hamlet” three times on Broadway.

Mr. Hampden was in his 70s when “Sabrina” was shot, and he came to the movies late in his career, and played only character parts. He was the longwinded master of ceremonies at the beginning and end of “All about Eve” (1950), which poked fun at his own historic place in American theatre, and he played the Archdeacon in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939).

He took on a few television roles (nominated for an Emmy), but most of his career was spent on the boards where he played the classics, including heralded stints as Cyrano de Bergerac, Hamlet (once with Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia), and even founded the American Repertory Theatre. His last stage role was in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”

Twenty-one years old at the turn of the 20th century, Mr. Hampden could not then have envisioned sound film let alone television, where he played Hamlet for the last time.

Capping off his film career as Louis XVI of France in “The Vagabond King,” Mr. Hampden was one of those superlative stage actors who proves, and evidently must have felt, that all the world’s a stage.