Bonita Granville made four Nancy Drew B-movies based on the famous character in the series of novels for girls. This first entry gives us beginning and end titles with the silhouette of Nancy drawn as a shadow in the dark, carrying a flashlight and with the wind blowing her hair, her scarf, and her skirt before her. It is a typical image found in the illustrations for the books by Carolyn Keene (actually a pseudonym for a team of writers), and is wonderfully evocative of that girls’ mystery genre.
Warner Bros. specialized in hard boiled crime films of detectives and gangsters, but there is nothing hard boiled about the Nancy Drew series, which does not even follow the novels that closely. We do have Nancy, plucky, clever teen who sticks her nose in other people’s business, but Bonita Granville plays her with more cheerfulness and humor than her literary counterpart. Carson Drew, her lawyer dad played by John Litel, an intelligent kindly authority figure and seems to defend only innocent people, and spends a lot of time warning Nancy to stay out of trouble.
Ned Nickerson becomes Ted in this series. Played by Frankie Thomas, Ted is a bit more bumbling but a lot more funny than his counterpart in the books as well. Ted’s and Nancy’s relationship is more teasing than amorous, but the chemistry between the two young actors brings a lot to the films. Nancy’s other chums, “boyish George” and “plump Bess” are nowhere to be seen. Just as well, there’d be nothing for them to do.
In this first outing, the plot is fast paced, almost as fast as Nancy’s speech. A rich elderly woman is kidnapped, and Nancy drags poor Ted along on a spree of clues, thugs, and ineffectual police represented by Captain Tweedy to save the day. Ted is useful because he can tackle people and knows a lot about carrier pigeons.
Nancy’s famous roadster (for those of you who grew up on the original stories, you will recall she never drove a car; she drove a roadster. She never wore a dress; she wore a frock), is about the size of the Queen Mary. We can tell by the rear-screen projection whizzing by us just how maniacally fast Nancy drives. Nancy leaves the comfort of her palatial suburban house with its enormous curved staircase and goofy maid Effie, to scour River Heights for clues. (Or clews, depending on which editions you read.)
There is a lot of racing about in Nancy’s roadster in this film. We have a wonderful, essentially trouble-free world of two all-American kids who change their own flat tires, fly in biplanes with helmets and goggles, shooting aerial pictures with a Brownie camera and develop their own black and white prints, send Western Union telegrams, and also distress signals through the radio. They use Ham radios and know that bluebells are also called larkspurs. They face surly gunmen and Ted, good guy that he is, even consents to dressing in disguise as a female nurse of that era to help free the old lady held hostage in a sinister rest home. Resplendent in a dress white nurse’s uniform, white stockings and cap, and cape, he looks like Cherry Ames on steroids. (Unlike Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames never got her own B-movie serial. Must not have had a good agent.)
The real nurse (played by Mae Busch, who we last saw as the battleaxe Mrs. Hardy in “Unaccustomed As We Are”) inside the spooky house is being very mean to the old lady, who has a lot of money, which is why everybody is bothering about her. Ted is a much nicer nurse. When one of the bad guys flirtatiously hits on Ted, our hero bravely pulls out his compact and begins to reapply his makeup, virtuously giving the ne’er do well the brush-off.
Add a rumble seat and a roadster with a broken starter than needs to be cranked in order for the engine to turn over, and you have one swell adventure, at least one for the time capsule.
That’s all for this week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Frankie Thomas
Though Frankie Thomas spent four films as Ted Nickerson in the Nancy Drew series from 1938 to 1939, this versatile child actor played a variety of roles in his film and stage career.
His parents both were actors, and young Mr. Thomas performed early in his career on Broadway. His role in “Wednesday’s Child” brought him to Hollywood for the film version in 1934, and he played small parts in “Boys Town” and in “The Major and the Minor.” However, after his service in World War II, Thomas was not able to turn his success as a child actor in adult roles.
His likeability in the Nancy Drew series helps to keep the character of Ted from simply being a fool to Nancy’s more clever character. Ted is actually quite indispensable, and his contributions to Nancy’s crime-solving sprees keeps her out of trouble, though he grumbles about being dragged into them.
When his mother tells the voracious Ted eating breakfast that there is no more bacon, Ted’s smart aleck response is, “What’s the matter? The recession still on?” In 1938 it was for most of the young people who were their fans, but not for Ted and Nancy Drew.
Television brought a new career to Mr. Thomas, a new flock of young fans, when he donned the uniform of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. In later years he wrote several novels, as well as books on the game of bridge, and though he looked back with fondness on his film career, never regretted having left it behind.
His parents both were actors, and young Mr. Thomas performed early in his career on Broadway. His role in “Wednesday’s Child” brought him to Hollywood for the film version in 1934, and he played small parts in “Boys Town” and in “The Major and the Minor.” However, after his service in World War II, Thomas was not able to turn his success as a child actor in adult roles.
His likeability in the Nancy Drew series helps to keep the character of Ted from simply being a fool to Nancy’s more clever character. Ted is actually quite indispensable, and his contributions to Nancy’s crime-solving sprees keeps her out of trouble, though he grumbles about being dragged into them.
When his mother tells the voracious Ted eating breakfast that there is no more bacon, Ted’s smart aleck response is, “What’s the matter? The recession still on?” In 1938 it was for most of the young people who were their fans, but not for Ted and Nancy Drew.
Television brought a new career to Mr. Thomas, a new flock of young fans, when he donned the uniform of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. In later years he wrote several novels, as well as books on the game of bridge, and though he looked back with fondness on his film career, never regretted having left it behind.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Erik Rhodes
Erik Rhodes plays the impossibly funny Rudolfo Tonetti in “The Gay Divorcee” (1934), a role which he created on Broadway. Playing a number of European types in a couple dozen comedies through the 1930s, Mr. Rhodes was actually born in Oklahoma when it was still Indian Territory. Though he had real singing talent with a powerful tenor voice, he was used mainly as a comic foil even more than a specialty act. He played his strutting, hapless, beaming Tonetti completely over the top.
Unable to remember the passwords, “Chance is the fool’s name for fate,” which will allow him to hook up with the character played by Ginger Rogers, whom he has not met, the unfortunate Tonetti bungles the line in various versions and gets slapped and belted until he is rescued and pointed in the right direction. His phone call to his wife Maria is both sweet and screwball, and when he is about to be pushed aside by Fred Astaire, whom he thinks is another paid corespondent in Ginger’s divorce case, indignantly asks him, “Are you a union man?”
Mr. Rhodes did some television in the 1950s, but his film career reached it height twenty years earlier with characters like Tonetti, who were larger than life. But character actors like Billy Gilbert or Alan Reed would have played Tonetti in a different way, where Mr. Rhodes plays Tonetti with a charming, self-effacing silliness more than caricature.
Unable to remember the passwords, “Chance is the fool’s name for fate,” which will allow him to hook up with the character played by Ginger Rogers, whom he has not met, the unfortunate Tonetti bungles the line in various versions and gets slapped and belted until he is rescued and pointed in the right direction. His phone call to his wife Maria is both sweet and screwball, and when he is about to be pushed aside by Fred Astaire, whom he thinks is another paid corespondent in Ginger’s divorce case, indignantly asks him, “Are you a union man?”
Mr. Rhodes did some television in the 1950s, but his film career reached it height twenty years earlier with characters like Tonetti, who were larger than life. But character actors like Billy Gilbert or Alan Reed would have played Tonetti in a different way, where Mr. Rhodes plays Tonetti with a charming, self-effacing silliness more than caricature.
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
Fred Astaire reprises his Broadway role in “The Gay Divorcée” (1934) as a rascally hoofer, who in this film wanders among night clubbers in Paris and London with his pal Edward Everett Horton, falls in love with an uninterested Ginger Rogers and spends most of the film trying to get her interested.
Ginger has her own predicament, stuck in a loveless marriage and turning to lawyer Horton to arrange a divorce. Mr. Horton arranges for her to be caught with a hired professional corespondent in order that her husband might be enraged into divorcing her.
Edward Everett Horton, who always seems somewhat like an upper class Gomer Pyle, has some fun scenes as a bumbling second banana, and even gets to sing and caper a bit with a young Betty Grable in the “Let’s Knock Knees” number. Alice Brady is the scatterbrained man-chasing aunt of Ginger who gets some good lines, and Erik Rhodes, who, like Fred Astaire, reprises his Broadway role as Rudolfo Tonetti, a gloriously absurd professional homewrecker and operatic tenor.
It is difficult to listen to the wonderfully precise intonations of Mr. Horton without being reminded of his narration of the “Fractured Fairy Tales” on “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
Though some smart aleck remarks by just about everybody keep the comic ball rolling, the film is a bit slow moving, particular at the beginning, and we see right off in the “Looking for a Needle in a Haystack” number an early example of Mr. Astaire’s agility and inventiveness in dancing all over furniture. The film is a time capsule of 1934, with platinum blondes with short, bouncy curls, bathing suits with belts, pleated trousers, architecture held together with chrome and black lacquer, and enough Art Deco accoutrements to choke a horse.
They end up at a seaside resort where the meridian lines painted on the shiny floor of an outdoor courtyard/dance floor are intended to give the set some depth. Here Ginger and the pseudo-suave Tonetti are to engage in a pretend tryst. No fear for Ginger, as Tonetti proudly exclaims his motto, “Your wife is safe with Tonetti. He prefers spaghetti.”
But Fred intervenes and there is a case of mistaken identity when Ginger thinks he is the hired corespondent. Ginger changes into a negligee with more doodads on it than a drum majorette’s costume, and Tonetti eventually arrives with his concertina and, all business, slips into a smoking jacket, the standard uniform of roués.
The big production number here is “The Continental,” which won the Academy Award for Best Music and Best Original Song. It is a very long staged number, where after Fred and Ginger get their turn, an army of dancers flows onto the set like locusts in an assortment of black and white evening attire. They form geometric patterns and eventually become increasingly acrobatic, like a Superbowl halftime show.
Eric Blore, in his typical oily, comic, but clever servant’s role, comes inadvertently to the rescue and Fred and Ginger leave us with another waltz over the furniture in her suite. It was their second of ten films together, and by now the pattern was as set as their remarkably precise and impeccably structured dancing.
Here is a bit of Fred and Ginger dancing “The Continental.”
Ginger has her own predicament, stuck in a loveless marriage and turning to lawyer Horton to arrange a divorce. Mr. Horton arranges for her to be caught with a hired professional corespondent in order that her husband might be enraged into divorcing her.
Edward Everett Horton, who always seems somewhat like an upper class Gomer Pyle, has some fun scenes as a bumbling second banana, and even gets to sing and caper a bit with a young Betty Grable in the “Let’s Knock Knees” number. Alice Brady is the scatterbrained man-chasing aunt of Ginger who gets some good lines, and Erik Rhodes, who, like Fred Astaire, reprises his Broadway role as Rudolfo Tonetti, a gloriously absurd professional homewrecker and operatic tenor.
It is difficult to listen to the wonderfully precise intonations of Mr. Horton without being reminded of his narration of the “Fractured Fairy Tales” on “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
Though some smart aleck remarks by just about everybody keep the comic ball rolling, the film is a bit slow moving, particular at the beginning, and we see right off in the “Looking for a Needle in a Haystack” number an early example of Mr. Astaire’s agility and inventiveness in dancing all over furniture. The film is a time capsule of 1934, with platinum blondes with short, bouncy curls, bathing suits with belts, pleated trousers, architecture held together with chrome and black lacquer, and enough Art Deco accoutrements to choke a horse.
They end up at a seaside resort where the meridian lines painted on the shiny floor of an outdoor courtyard/dance floor are intended to give the set some depth. Here Ginger and the pseudo-suave Tonetti are to engage in a pretend tryst. No fear for Ginger, as Tonetti proudly exclaims his motto, “Your wife is safe with Tonetti. He prefers spaghetti.”
But Fred intervenes and there is a case of mistaken identity when Ginger thinks he is the hired corespondent. Ginger changes into a negligee with more doodads on it than a drum majorette’s costume, and Tonetti eventually arrives with his concertina and, all business, slips into a smoking jacket, the standard uniform of roués.
The big production number here is “The Continental,” which won the Academy Award for Best Music and Best Original Song. It is a very long staged number, where after Fred and Ginger get their turn, an army of dancers flows onto the set like locusts in an assortment of black and white evening attire. They form geometric patterns and eventually become increasingly acrobatic, like a Superbowl halftime show.
Eric Blore, in his typical oily, comic, but clever servant’s role, comes inadvertently to the rescue and Fred and Ginger leave us with another waltz over the furniture in her suite. It was their second of ten films together, and by now the pattern was as set as their remarkably precise and impeccably structured dancing.
Here is a bit of Fred and Ginger dancing “The Continental.”
Thursday, November 1, 2007
David Frye
David Frye is best remembered for his creepy Renfield in “Dracula” (1931), but was a character actor of wide range and abilities, and interests, who to his own regret became quickly typecast into small roles as maniacs in monster movies.
Mr. Frye was came to Hollywood from Broadway. His role in “Dracula” brought him the attention of the public and the studio alike, and he was quickly re-used as Fritz in “Frankenstein,” also made in 1931. It was a mold that he tried later to break, unsuccessfully, as the studio kept using him in smaller and smaller roles which usually required him to support lunatic masters.
On the side, he returned to the stage and found satisfaction in local theater. As if he wasn’t busy enough, during the war he helped the war effort by working nights, when his scheduled allowed, at Lockheed Aircraft Company as a tool designer. Tragically, Mr. Frye died of a heart attack while only in his early 40s. In later years, his depiction of the doomed Renfield made him something of a cult figure, but he was much more than that.
Here is a fine website with more detail on the career of David Frye.
That’s all for this week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
Mr. Frye was came to Hollywood from Broadway. His role in “Dracula” brought him the attention of the public and the studio alike, and he was quickly re-used as Fritz in “Frankenstein,” also made in 1931. It was a mold that he tried later to break, unsuccessfully, as the studio kept using him in smaller and smaller roles which usually required him to support lunatic masters.
On the side, he returned to the stage and found satisfaction in local theater. As if he wasn’t busy enough, during the war he helped the war effort by working nights, when his scheduled allowed, at Lockheed Aircraft Company as a tool designer. Tragically, Mr. Frye died of a heart attack while only in his early 40s. In later years, his depiction of the doomed Renfield made him something of a cult figure, but he was much more than that.
Here is a fine website with more detail on the career of David Frye.
That’s all for this week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Wolf Man (1941)
By the time “The Wolf Man” was released in 1941, the monster movie genre had found its momentum and worked like a well-oiled machine. Monsters were being put to death in one film, and then always efficiently resurrected for the next sequel. Lon Chaney, Jr., plays Larry Talbot, who returns home after many years abroad to the English estate of his father, played by Claude Rains.
The film begins without lightning storms, dark shadows, or any gloom at all. It is sunny and cheerful, and Larry is welcomed home by his father and by old friend Ralph Bellamy, now a police inspector in the village. Pretty soon there are Gypsies and a lot of fog, and then trouble starts.
We are given a glance at an encyclopedia entry which explains that lycanthropy, or werewolfism, has been known to happen at places like Talbot Castle. This gives us the standard believe-it-or-not challenge to enjoy the film.
Bela Lugosi plays a very different role as a Gypsy who is also a werewolf. He is almost unrecognizable from his Count Dracula role, now with a walrus mustache, his Gypsy native attire, and his bushy hair with no courtly manners and no Brylcreem in sight. His role is brief, however, when he gets clubbed by the sliver-headed cane of Larry, who kills what he thinks is a wolf attacking his new lady friend’s best friend.
His new friend, who is affianced to Patric Knowles in another small role, recites the now famous werewolf poem:
“Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright.”
If you didn’t catch it the first time, that’s okay because it gets repeated a few more times and you’ll know it by heart by the end of the movie.
The wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya plays the Gypsy mother of Bela Lugosi, who mourns her son but is comforted that his torment is over. Larry will eventually turn to her for help. Whenever she is around it gets very foggy.
We know who the next victim is going to be because a pentagram always appears in the palm of the next victim. This, and the dissolve shots which show transformation of Mr. Chaney into a werewolf are the main special effects of this film.
When Larry is first bitten, he heads home and checks his hands and arms. So far, so good. Not too much hair, and he does not need a shave yet. But when he checks his feet and pulls up his trouser legs and shows us his gams, we see it’s too late. Time lapse photography shows his feet turning into monstrous paws.
There are debates among his father, the cop, and the local doctor about werewolfism being a kind of schizophrenia, that it is more psychological than physical, more about, as his father tells Larry, “The good and evil in every man’s soul.” This is 1941, and the film was released just after Pearl Harbor, so there is a bit more being tossed around here than the literal transformation of a man to a monster.
When they are off to church, his father tells the anguished Larry, “Belief in the hereafter is a very healthy counterbalance to all the conflicted doubts man is plagued with these days.”
In Larry’s last transformation into a werewolf in the foggy woods, all the principle characters chase him there, either to kill or to help him, his father, the doctor, the cop, his girlfriend, and the Gypsy woman. There is a brief, but fine showdown between the elegant actors Miss Ouspenskaya and Mr. Rains as he interrogates her but she displays only a fatalistic and calm superiority. When Larry takes the form of a wolf, his own father clubs him to death, and when Larry resumes his peaceful, but now dead, human form, the townspeople assume he died protecting the young woman from a wolf. Neither his grieving father nor the sympathetic Gypsy woman speak the truth. Who would believe them? There’s no such thing as werewolves.
Mr. Chaney is not the actor his father was, but he carries the role of the doomed Larry Talbot with a kind of sad dignity. As Patric Knowles says of Talbot, “There’s something very tragic about that man.”
The film begins without lightning storms, dark shadows, or any gloom at all. It is sunny and cheerful, and Larry is welcomed home by his father and by old friend Ralph Bellamy, now a police inspector in the village. Pretty soon there are Gypsies and a lot of fog, and then trouble starts.
We are given a glance at an encyclopedia entry which explains that lycanthropy, or werewolfism, has been known to happen at places like Talbot Castle. This gives us the standard believe-it-or-not challenge to enjoy the film.
Bela Lugosi plays a very different role as a Gypsy who is also a werewolf. He is almost unrecognizable from his Count Dracula role, now with a walrus mustache, his Gypsy native attire, and his bushy hair with no courtly manners and no Brylcreem in sight. His role is brief, however, when he gets clubbed by the sliver-headed cane of Larry, who kills what he thinks is a wolf attacking his new lady friend’s best friend.
His new friend, who is affianced to Patric Knowles in another small role, recites the now famous werewolf poem:
“Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright.”
If you didn’t catch it the first time, that’s okay because it gets repeated a few more times and you’ll know it by heart by the end of the movie.
The wonderful Maria Ouspenskaya plays the Gypsy mother of Bela Lugosi, who mourns her son but is comforted that his torment is over. Larry will eventually turn to her for help. Whenever she is around it gets very foggy.
We know who the next victim is going to be because a pentagram always appears in the palm of the next victim. This, and the dissolve shots which show transformation of Mr. Chaney into a werewolf are the main special effects of this film.
When Larry is first bitten, he heads home and checks his hands and arms. So far, so good. Not too much hair, and he does not need a shave yet. But when he checks his feet and pulls up his trouser legs and shows us his gams, we see it’s too late. Time lapse photography shows his feet turning into monstrous paws.
There are debates among his father, the cop, and the local doctor about werewolfism being a kind of schizophrenia, that it is more psychological than physical, more about, as his father tells Larry, “The good and evil in every man’s soul.” This is 1941, and the film was released just after Pearl Harbor, so there is a bit more being tossed around here than the literal transformation of a man to a monster.
When they are off to church, his father tells the anguished Larry, “Belief in the hereafter is a very healthy counterbalance to all the conflicted doubts man is plagued with these days.”
In Larry’s last transformation into a werewolf in the foggy woods, all the principle characters chase him there, either to kill or to help him, his father, the doctor, the cop, his girlfriend, and the Gypsy woman. There is a brief, but fine showdown between the elegant actors Miss Ouspenskaya and Mr. Rains as he interrogates her but she displays only a fatalistic and calm superiority. When Larry takes the form of a wolf, his own father clubs him to death, and when Larry resumes his peaceful, but now dead, human form, the townspeople assume he died protecting the young woman from a wolf. Neither his grieving father nor the sympathetic Gypsy woman speak the truth. Who would believe them? There’s no such thing as werewolves.
Mr. Chaney is not the actor his father was, but he carries the role of the doomed Larry Talbot with a kind of sad dignity. As Patric Knowles says of Talbot, “There’s something very tragic about that man.”
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Frankenstein (1931)
Universal’s second blockbuster monster hit of 1931 was “Frankenstein” which made a film star out of Boris Karloff in the way “Dracula” did Bela Lugosi. The physical appearance of the monster, the burning windmill, have all become iconic now.
The film is noted in the opening credits to be taken from a novel by Mrs. Percy B. Shelley, as if she were some society dowager writing short stories for “The Saturday Evening Post.” The audience is not informed that this is a classic of English literature, and it is not treated as such, as both the films “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” were based more on the play adaptations than the original novels.
The film opens with a gentleman master of ceremonies introducing the film, and warning us, “I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel you do not care to subject yourselves to such a strain, well, we warned you.”
Well, now, them’s fighting words and of course not only are we going to stay for the feature, we’re going to take it darned seriously.
Colin Clive plays Dr. Frankenstein, a highly strung scientific genius who lives for his work, at the expense of his friends, his fiancée Elizabeth, played by Mae Clark, and his curmudgeonly father. John Boles plays Victor, who in a role similar to David Manners’ role in “Dracula,” has the less glamorous supporting role as the friend and all around good guy.
Our old friend David Frye appears in this film as well, as Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant, Fritz. Fritz is hunchbacked, subservient, and not overly intelligent. Fritz does a lot less scenery chewing than the crazed Renfield of “Dracula,” but Mr. Frye now seems locked into spending his considerable talent on horror films.
The film begins with Frankenstein and Fritz (sounds like a law firm), robbing a grave. Dr. Frankenstein has cobbled together a body from different body parts, and now needs a brain. The hanged man they find will not do because his neck has been broken, (well, yeah) and so Fritz heads off to the lab of Dr. Frankenstein’s mentor, where there are brains conveniently in jars, to get one.
There are two brains, one labeled “normal” and one “abnormal,” which the lecturer tells his students is the brain of a criminal. One wonders if there is a bit of eugenics of that period involved here. In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, the creature is not born evil.
Dr. Frankenstein’s secret laboratory is a cavernous stone castle full of beakers and electrical coils. He is a brilliant megalomaniac who wants to create life from scratch. Getting married to Elizabeth and creating life the old fashioned way doesn’t seem to appeal to him. As he prepares to complete his experiment during a terrific thunderstorm, his mentor, his fiancée, and John Boles crash the party. Mr. Clive’s exasperated, “Of all times for anybody to come!” is almost comic. We’ve all felt the same way at one time or another about unexpected guests.
In a few moments, the inert body of the monster will be hoisted to the skylight to absorb the electricity of the storm outside, Mr. Clive gets to shriek his classic words, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” and we get soon get a monster on the loose.
We hear the heavy footsteps of the creature, and are introduced to the monster in an extreme, but brief close-up, on his drooping lids, his morose expression, the bolts in the neck. The really high forehead and the really flat head. His sleeves are too short. He obeys simple commands, and cannot speak. There is less horror than sympathy for this creature, whom even his creator calls “it” and not “he.”
When the monster kills Fritz, the completely unstrung Dr. Frankenstein is led back home by the dependable Mr. Boles, while his mentor, Dr. Waldman, prepares to destroy the monster. No such luck, and monster heads for the foggy hills. Waldman was played by Edward Van Sloan, who we last saw as Professor Van Helsing in “Dracula.” He also plays the MC at the beginning of this film.
We see jubilant preparations being made in town for long-awaited wedding of Dr. Frankenstein and Elizabeth, which his curmudgeonly father, played with comic irascibility by Frederick Kerr, has been whining for all along. Curiously, none of the citizens of this German village speaks with a German accent. They all sound like a mix between London’s East End, and somewhere in Missouri.
A poignant scene between the monster and his new friend, a little girl who wants to play with him and hasn’t the sense to run away from very big strangers with flat heads, turns tragic when he accidentally kills her. Horrified by what has happened, the monster runs away, more agitated than before, and wrecks the boudoir of Elizabeth, dressed in her wedding gown. Soon all the people with torches and clubs are after him. Evidently nobody owns a gun. Dr. Frankenstein changes from his formal wedding attire and puts on a pair of Jodhpurs, so you know he means business.
Eventually there is a showdown between creator and creation on the stony heights of an impressive set, and the monster knocks Dr. Frankenstein silly, dragging him to the windmill, where of course, the villagers set fire to it. This film has a bit more graphic horror than “Dracula” in the sense that we see the monster throw the little girl into the lake, and we see him throw Dr. Frankenstein’s limp body from the windmill, and we see the flames encircle him as he shrieks in terror. It is as if Universal is starting to push the envelope a bit.
The film ends with a recovering Dr. Frankenstein supposedly having learned his lesson, but quite tellingly, matinee idol John Boles does not get the girl in this film, as David Manners was allowed to in “Dracula.” Both these men were stars who were relegated to these minor roles probably to jump-start the hoped-for popularity of these films. Both films were financial successes, leading to new stars being created, to the point where the handsome leading men were no longer needed to attract an audience.
One note on Boris Karloff’s work in this film, though he does little more than pantomime and grunt, what Karloff endured to create this character is remarkable. The makeup, devised by Jack P. Pierce, took 3½ hours to apply. The costume weighed nearly 70 pounds, and each shoe weighed about 21 pounds. No wonder his footsteps always sounded heavy.
The film is noted in the opening credits to be taken from a novel by Mrs. Percy B. Shelley, as if she were some society dowager writing short stories for “The Saturday Evening Post.” The audience is not informed that this is a classic of English literature, and it is not treated as such, as both the films “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” were based more on the play adaptations than the original novels.
The film opens with a gentleman master of ceremonies introducing the film, and warning us, “I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So, if any of you feel you do not care to subject yourselves to such a strain, well, we warned you.”
Well, now, them’s fighting words and of course not only are we going to stay for the feature, we’re going to take it darned seriously.
Colin Clive plays Dr. Frankenstein, a highly strung scientific genius who lives for his work, at the expense of his friends, his fiancée Elizabeth, played by Mae Clark, and his curmudgeonly father. John Boles plays Victor, who in a role similar to David Manners’ role in “Dracula,” has the less glamorous supporting role as the friend and all around good guy.
Our old friend David Frye appears in this film as well, as Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant, Fritz. Fritz is hunchbacked, subservient, and not overly intelligent. Fritz does a lot less scenery chewing than the crazed Renfield of “Dracula,” but Mr. Frye now seems locked into spending his considerable talent on horror films.
The film begins with Frankenstein and Fritz (sounds like a law firm), robbing a grave. Dr. Frankenstein has cobbled together a body from different body parts, and now needs a brain. The hanged man they find will not do because his neck has been broken, (well, yeah) and so Fritz heads off to the lab of Dr. Frankenstein’s mentor, where there are brains conveniently in jars, to get one.
There are two brains, one labeled “normal” and one “abnormal,” which the lecturer tells his students is the brain of a criminal. One wonders if there is a bit of eugenics of that period involved here. In Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, the creature is not born evil.
Dr. Frankenstein’s secret laboratory is a cavernous stone castle full of beakers and electrical coils. He is a brilliant megalomaniac who wants to create life from scratch. Getting married to Elizabeth and creating life the old fashioned way doesn’t seem to appeal to him. As he prepares to complete his experiment during a terrific thunderstorm, his mentor, his fiancée, and John Boles crash the party. Mr. Clive’s exasperated, “Of all times for anybody to come!” is almost comic. We’ve all felt the same way at one time or another about unexpected guests.
In a few moments, the inert body of the monster will be hoisted to the skylight to absorb the electricity of the storm outside, Mr. Clive gets to shriek his classic words, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” and we get soon get a monster on the loose.
We hear the heavy footsteps of the creature, and are introduced to the monster in an extreme, but brief close-up, on his drooping lids, his morose expression, the bolts in the neck. The really high forehead and the really flat head. His sleeves are too short. He obeys simple commands, and cannot speak. There is less horror than sympathy for this creature, whom even his creator calls “it” and not “he.”
When the monster kills Fritz, the completely unstrung Dr. Frankenstein is led back home by the dependable Mr. Boles, while his mentor, Dr. Waldman, prepares to destroy the monster. No such luck, and monster heads for the foggy hills. Waldman was played by Edward Van Sloan, who we last saw as Professor Van Helsing in “Dracula.” He also plays the MC at the beginning of this film.
We see jubilant preparations being made in town for long-awaited wedding of Dr. Frankenstein and Elizabeth, which his curmudgeonly father, played with comic irascibility by Frederick Kerr, has been whining for all along. Curiously, none of the citizens of this German village speaks with a German accent. They all sound like a mix between London’s East End, and somewhere in Missouri.
A poignant scene between the monster and his new friend, a little girl who wants to play with him and hasn’t the sense to run away from very big strangers with flat heads, turns tragic when he accidentally kills her. Horrified by what has happened, the monster runs away, more agitated than before, and wrecks the boudoir of Elizabeth, dressed in her wedding gown. Soon all the people with torches and clubs are after him. Evidently nobody owns a gun. Dr. Frankenstein changes from his formal wedding attire and puts on a pair of Jodhpurs, so you know he means business.
Eventually there is a showdown between creator and creation on the stony heights of an impressive set, and the monster knocks Dr. Frankenstein silly, dragging him to the windmill, where of course, the villagers set fire to it. This film has a bit more graphic horror than “Dracula” in the sense that we see the monster throw the little girl into the lake, and we see him throw Dr. Frankenstein’s limp body from the windmill, and we see the flames encircle him as he shrieks in terror. It is as if Universal is starting to push the envelope a bit.
The film ends with a recovering Dr. Frankenstein supposedly having learned his lesson, but quite tellingly, matinee idol John Boles does not get the girl in this film, as David Manners was allowed to in “Dracula.” Both these men were stars who were relegated to these minor roles probably to jump-start the hoped-for popularity of these films. Both films were financial successes, leading to new stars being created, to the point where the handsome leading men were no longer needed to attract an audience.
One note on Boris Karloff’s work in this film, though he does little more than pantomime and grunt, what Karloff endured to create this character is remarkable. The makeup, devised by Jack P. Pierce, took 3½ hours to apply. The costume weighed nearly 70 pounds, and each shoe weighed about 21 pounds. No wonder his footsteps always sounded heavy.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Dracula (1931)
As we’re heading up to Halloween, this week might be a good time to visit three Universal films that give us the Big Three monsters: Dracula the vampire, the Frankenstein monster, and the werewolf. What Warner Bros. was to gangster movies and musicals were to MGM, monster movies were to Universal.
Two films from 1931, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” kept the studio afloat in the worst years of the Depression. In an era of escapist films, not everyone was escaping to screwball comedies set in wealthy mansions. Some were heading for the hills, those fog-bound Transylvanian Mountains, and the monsters that became matinee idols.
What strikes one immediately is the very slow pace of “Dracula,” which actually was deliberate. It adds to the creepiness of the film and allows lead actor Bela Lugosi to enunciate carefully his heavily-accented English. With his Brylcreemed black hair, his dapper evening clothes and his polished manners, Mr. Lugosi gives us a vampire whose charm will make us swoon as much as his lethal bite. Another standout in the film is David Frye, who plays Renfield, the property agent who secures the Count’s lease on a new residence in England, and who is promptly bitten by Dracula to become his crazed vampire-in-training servant. His horrifically creepy “I’m going to get you” laugh is one of the scariest parts of the film.
David Manners, a handsome and likable leading man of the day has a relatively thankless supporting role as a normal average good guy who tries to comfort the damsel in distress, though the real hero is Edward Van Sloan as Professor Van Helsing, vampire slayer.
We begin the film with Gypsies warning Renfield not to proceed on his journey to Dracula’s castle. Our first meeting with Dracula is when he impersonates his own coachman, and meets Renfield on a rugged mountain pass, waiting for him. His catatonic stare seems to glow in the dark, with the help of pin spots from the lighting man. The sets are dark, rugged and evocative, and show how effortlessly a painted backdrop can blend in with a manufactured foreground in black and white photography. This is not so easily accomplished in color films, with the results of fake backdrops looking nothing but fake.
There are bats and rats and bugs all over Dracula’s castle, a couple of critters that look like armadillos. Central casting must have sent them over. Mr. Lugosi’s immortal first line is, “I am Dracula,” and “I bid you welcome.” We hear the sound of howling wolves, and the soundtrack is especially effective in this film, with the heavy grinding sound of rolling wagon wheels. Mr. Lugosi has a rich, beautiful speaking voice, meant for sound film. His Dracula is courtly and well-mannered.
Just why Dracula wants to head off to England is not made clear, but the sea voyage where all the crew arrives in port dead with only the now mad Renfield on board is terrific. Dracula slumbers in his coffin below, and the authorities grab the laughing Renfield and chuck him in an insane asylum, where some of the staff with overdone cockney accents provides a bit of comedy relief.
Dracula strolls the foggy streets of London and bites a Cockney flower girl on the neck. If he had done that to Eliza Doolittle, “My Fair Lady” might have been an entirely different show.
An interesting note is that when Dracula does bite people, turning them into vampires, starting with Renfield and then proceeding on to several others, it is always done under a chaste fade-to-black shot. Renfield pricking his finger accidentally early in the film is the only blood we will see. There is a difference between telling a creepy story to your audience and just plain grossing them out, and that fine line has been lost.
When London suddenly discovers a rash of people turning into vampires, Professor Van Helsing gives us the line that is intended to make the story believable, “The superstition of yesterday can become the scientific reality of today.” We have seen this happen too many times to ignore the possibility that young Mina, who unlike Dracula’s other victims, still retains her polished finishing school diction and exemplary personal hygiene, could become a vampire herself any minute now unless somebody saves her.
It’s clearly not going to be the well-intentioned Mr. Manners, and this is one of the few times when an elderly man is the hero of the day over the younger handsome fellow. Professor Van Helsing warns, “The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.”
There are no real elaborate special effects in this film; it is all told with a suggestion of atmosphere. A little fog goes a long way. There is a clever scene where Van Helsing determines the charming Count is a vampire when Mr. Mannners lifts the lid of a cigarette case on a table, in which there is a mirror in the lid, and Van Helsing, and we ourselves, see that Dracula casts no reflection, and that Mina appears to be talking to herself.
The cellar of the English abbey where Van Helsing, Mr. Manners, and Dracula have a final showdown looks exactly like the cellar of Dracula’s castle back in Transylvania. When Van Helsing drives the stake into the sleeping Dracula’s heart, the camera shifts to a shot of Manners comforting Mina, no longer a vampire when the spell is broken. We heard Dracula’s groans and the sound of the pounding of the stake, which is probably more effective than watching it. In this film, as in the other films we’ll look at this week, the horror is really more suggestive than graphic. What we imagine is sometimes more creepy than what we see.
Two films from 1931, “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” kept the studio afloat in the worst years of the Depression. In an era of escapist films, not everyone was escaping to screwball comedies set in wealthy mansions. Some were heading for the hills, those fog-bound Transylvanian Mountains, and the monsters that became matinee idols.
What strikes one immediately is the very slow pace of “Dracula,” which actually was deliberate. It adds to the creepiness of the film and allows lead actor Bela Lugosi to enunciate carefully his heavily-accented English. With his Brylcreemed black hair, his dapper evening clothes and his polished manners, Mr. Lugosi gives us a vampire whose charm will make us swoon as much as his lethal bite. Another standout in the film is David Frye, who plays Renfield, the property agent who secures the Count’s lease on a new residence in England, and who is promptly bitten by Dracula to become his crazed vampire-in-training servant. His horrifically creepy “I’m going to get you” laugh is one of the scariest parts of the film.
David Manners, a handsome and likable leading man of the day has a relatively thankless supporting role as a normal average good guy who tries to comfort the damsel in distress, though the real hero is Edward Van Sloan as Professor Van Helsing, vampire slayer.
We begin the film with Gypsies warning Renfield not to proceed on his journey to Dracula’s castle. Our first meeting with Dracula is when he impersonates his own coachman, and meets Renfield on a rugged mountain pass, waiting for him. His catatonic stare seems to glow in the dark, with the help of pin spots from the lighting man. The sets are dark, rugged and evocative, and show how effortlessly a painted backdrop can blend in with a manufactured foreground in black and white photography. This is not so easily accomplished in color films, with the results of fake backdrops looking nothing but fake.
There are bats and rats and bugs all over Dracula’s castle, a couple of critters that look like armadillos. Central casting must have sent them over. Mr. Lugosi’s immortal first line is, “I am Dracula,” and “I bid you welcome.” We hear the sound of howling wolves, and the soundtrack is especially effective in this film, with the heavy grinding sound of rolling wagon wheels. Mr. Lugosi has a rich, beautiful speaking voice, meant for sound film. His Dracula is courtly and well-mannered.
Just why Dracula wants to head off to England is not made clear, but the sea voyage where all the crew arrives in port dead with only the now mad Renfield on board is terrific. Dracula slumbers in his coffin below, and the authorities grab the laughing Renfield and chuck him in an insane asylum, where some of the staff with overdone cockney accents provides a bit of comedy relief.
Dracula strolls the foggy streets of London and bites a Cockney flower girl on the neck. If he had done that to Eliza Doolittle, “My Fair Lady” might have been an entirely different show.
An interesting note is that when Dracula does bite people, turning them into vampires, starting with Renfield and then proceeding on to several others, it is always done under a chaste fade-to-black shot. Renfield pricking his finger accidentally early in the film is the only blood we will see. There is a difference between telling a creepy story to your audience and just plain grossing them out, and that fine line has been lost.
When London suddenly discovers a rash of people turning into vampires, Professor Van Helsing gives us the line that is intended to make the story believable, “The superstition of yesterday can become the scientific reality of today.” We have seen this happen too many times to ignore the possibility that young Mina, who unlike Dracula’s other victims, still retains her polished finishing school diction and exemplary personal hygiene, could become a vampire herself any minute now unless somebody saves her.
It’s clearly not going to be the well-intentioned Mr. Manners, and this is one of the few times when an elderly man is the hero of the day over the younger handsome fellow. Professor Van Helsing warns, “The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.”
There are no real elaborate special effects in this film; it is all told with a suggestion of atmosphere. A little fog goes a long way. There is a clever scene where Van Helsing determines the charming Count is a vampire when Mr. Mannners lifts the lid of a cigarette case on a table, in which there is a mirror in the lid, and Van Helsing, and we ourselves, see that Dracula casts no reflection, and that Mina appears to be talking to herself.
The cellar of the English abbey where Van Helsing, Mr. Manners, and Dracula have a final showdown looks exactly like the cellar of Dracula’s castle back in Transylvania. When Van Helsing drives the stake into the sleeping Dracula’s heart, the camera shifts to a shot of Manners comforting Mina, no longer a vampire when the spell is broken. We heard Dracula’s groans and the sound of the pounding of the stake, which is probably more effective than watching it. In this film, as in the other films we’ll look at this week, the horror is really more suggestive than graphic. What we imagine is sometimes more creepy than what we see.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Thin Man (1934)
“The Thin Man” (1934) brings to life the urbane detective in Dashiell Hammett’s final novel, but also brought to life the remarkable partnership of William Powell and Myrna Loy. Their chemistry, more than anything, carries this film.
It is first and foremost, a mystery with a murder, and suspects, and a dogged detective on the trail. It is also a comedy, where Nick and Nora Charles have a collection of eccentric characters at a cocktail party that beats the nuts at Audrey Hepburn’s party in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by nearly 30 years.
The charm of the relationship between Nick and Nora, played by Powell and Loy, can probably be best exemplified by one particular scene. Nick interviews one of the suspects of the murder, a ditzy and selfish society woman whose distress causes her to seek comfort in Nick’s embrace. At that moment, his wife Nora enters the room. In any other movie, particularly a comedy, there would be that moment of misunderstanding, where the wife thinks the husband has been unfaithful, and he must awkwardly explain himself.
Not for Nick and Nora. After an expectant moment for the audience, Miss Loy playfully makes a disgusted face at Mr. Powell, who playfully returns her disdainful smirk with a nasty taunting face of his own. We see instantly that this is a couple whose trust in each other is as great as their desire for one another.
The film is riddled with funny, sexy lines which skirt the edge of double entendres and show the creativity of talented writers in the days when the Code made flirtatiousness a witty art form. Mr. Powell makes these lines all the more potent by reacting to them when said by the other actors, and not having to awkwardly blunder through them himself. Nick really demonstrates his sophistication not by his evening clothes or his money, but by his ability to pick out the naughty side of everything with a bemused smile.
“What’s that man doing in my drawers?” Nora demands when a police detective searches their apartment, and Nick reacts. When she shows the newspaper headlines to Nick after an altercation with a suspect, she exclaims “You were shot two times in the tabloids.”
He replies, ‘He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”
There is copious drinking in the film, some white telephones and blond furniture, and a fluoroscope. Pretty much everything that screams 1930s escapist screwball comedy of the society people. Well, maybe not the fluoroscope, but it’s a kick to see this antiquated version of the modern apparatus figures into solving the crime. A few serious scenes with seamy characters and fine, tense acting keep the film on course with the murder plot, but the climax where Nick and Nora invite all the suspects to a formal dinner party to ferret out and murderer and just for the fun of it, is classic.
It’s easy to see why William Powell and Myrna Loy were teamed up again for more Thin Man films. Their easy, sexy chemistry did more to make these two characters and their marriage as important to the film as the mystery to be solved. Neither could be taken for granted.
That’s all for this week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
It is first and foremost, a mystery with a murder, and suspects, and a dogged detective on the trail. It is also a comedy, where Nick and Nora Charles have a collection of eccentric characters at a cocktail party that beats the nuts at Audrey Hepburn’s party in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by nearly 30 years.
The charm of the relationship between Nick and Nora, played by Powell and Loy, can probably be best exemplified by one particular scene. Nick interviews one of the suspects of the murder, a ditzy and selfish society woman whose distress causes her to seek comfort in Nick’s embrace. At that moment, his wife Nora enters the room. In any other movie, particularly a comedy, there would be that moment of misunderstanding, where the wife thinks the husband has been unfaithful, and he must awkwardly explain himself.
Not for Nick and Nora. After an expectant moment for the audience, Miss Loy playfully makes a disgusted face at Mr. Powell, who playfully returns her disdainful smirk with a nasty taunting face of his own. We see instantly that this is a couple whose trust in each other is as great as their desire for one another.
The film is riddled with funny, sexy lines which skirt the edge of double entendres and show the creativity of talented writers in the days when the Code made flirtatiousness a witty art form. Mr. Powell makes these lines all the more potent by reacting to them when said by the other actors, and not having to awkwardly blunder through them himself. Nick really demonstrates his sophistication not by his evening clothes or his money, but by his ability to pick out the naughty side of everything with a bemused smile.
“What’s that man doing in my drawers?” Nora demands when a police detective searches their apartment, and Nick reacts. When she shows the newspaper headlines to Nick after an altercation with a suspect, she exclaims “You were shot two times in the tabloids.”
He replies, ‘He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”
There is copious drinking in the film, some white telephones and blond furniture, and a fluoroscope. Pretty much everything that screams 1930s escapist screwball comedy of the society people. Well, maybe not the fluoroscope, but it’s a kick to see this antiquated version of the modern apparatus figures into solving the crime. A few serious scenes with seamy characters and fine, tense acting keep the film on course with the murder plot, but the climax where Nick and Nora invite all the suspects to a formal dinner party to ferret out and murderer and just for the fun of it, is classic.
It’s easy to see why William Powell and Myrna Loy were teamed up again for more Thin Man films. Their easy, sexy chemistry did more to make these two characters and their marriage as important to the film as the mystery to be solved. Neither could be taken for granted.
That’s all for this week. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Porter Hall
Porter Hall played a variety of villains, and pompous characters both in dramas and comedies. Some were quite small roles, such as Mr. Belknap in “Going My Way” (1945), whose irritation at having his window broken by kids playing ball brings him to a war of words, not to mention ideologies, with Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley, and announces angrily that he is an atheist when he spitefully chucks the baseball back at Father. To which Crosby replies, when his baseball is returned, “You throw like an atheist.”
Mr. Hall takes it on the chin figuratively and literally through a good part of his career playing unlikable characters, sometimes with an unaffected and natural quality, like his role as Mr. MacCaulay in “The Thin Man” (1934), his third film, and sometimes quite comically over the top, like his neurotic Mr. Sawyer, the Macy’s store psychologist in “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947) who antagonizes Kris Kringle and gets smacked over the head with a cane for it.
His is identifiable in all his films, though in some you have to not blink or you’ll miss him, such as Senator Monroe in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939) or the reporter Murphy in “His Girl Friday” (1940), or Mr. Jackson in “Double Indemnity” (1946).
Mr. Hall acted on Broadway and in touring stock companies in the 1920s and early 1930s before he came to Hollywood. He was in his 40s by the time he appeared in his first film. This shifty, irritable villain, neurotic psychologist, and occasional atheist was a deacon in Hollywood’s First Presbyterian Church, and reportedly an engaging and well-liked man. Evidently, a very good actor.
Mr. Hall takes it on the chin figuratively and literally through a good part of his career playing unlikable characters, sometimes with an unaffected and natural quality, like his role as Mr. MacCaulay in “The Thin Man” (1934), his third film, and sometimes quite comically over the top, like his neurotic Mr. Sawyer, the Macy’s store psychologist in “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947) who antagonizes Kris Kringle and gets smacked over the head with a cane for it.
His is identifiable in all his films, though in some you have to not blink or you’ll miss him, such as Senator Monroe in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939) or the reporter Murphy in “His Girl Friday” (1940), or Mr. Jackson in “Double Indemnity” (1946).
Mr. Hall acted on Broadway and in touring stock companies in the 1920s and early 1930s before he came to Hollywood. He was in his 40s by the time he appeared in his first film. This shifty, irritable villain, neurotic psychologist, and occasional atheist was a deacon in Hollywood’s First Presbyterian Church, and reportedly an engaging and well-liked man. Evidently, a very good actor.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Minna Gombell
Minna Gombell, who we last saw as Oliver Hardy’s battleaxe wife in “Block-Heads” (1938), played a wide variety of roles, perhaps a greater range than many other character actors of her day. She was Mrs. Godfrey in the musical “Here Comes the Groom” (1951), and also played the kindly but careworn Mrs. Parrish whose son returns from the war with both his hands amputated in “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946).
She played in a number of westerns, and also played the raucous Queen of the Beggars in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939). She stands out in the small role of the combative, streetwise floozy Mimi Jorgensen in “The Thin Man” (1934). Miss Gombell could play the sympathetic and sedate matron, or the loud floozy. She did not specialize, and perhaps if she did she might have been known for one attribute or one shtick that she could milk as a character actress. Instead, she was less a typical character actress and more like a lead actress with very few lines.
She played in a number of westerns, and also played the raucous Queen of the Beggars in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939). She stands out in the small role of the combative, streetwise floozy Mimi Jorgensen in “The Thin Man” (1934). Miss Gombell could play the sympathetic and sedate matron, or the loud floozy. She did not specialize, and perhaps if she did she might have been known for one attribute or one shtick that she could milk as a character actress. Instead, she was less a typical character actress and more like a lead actress with very few lines.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr’s recent passing calls to mind her role in “Separate Tables” (1958), one of her six Oscar-nominated roles. The difference in her appearance in this film from her other characterization of cool, controlled, genteel, and sexy women which made her one of the most appealing actresses of her generation, is the challenge of playing Sibyl Railton-Bell and her success at such a pathetic and unflattering character.
Sibyl is emotionally brittle, shy, nervous and dominated by a manipulative and controlling mother. In this role Miss Kerr manages the unusual combination of appearing hunched over and yet lanky at the same time. She carries herself completely differently than she does in her other mannerly “English rose” type outings. Mousy doesn’t seem quite the word for Sibyl; she is quite emotionally crippled by her own bewilderment at relationships with other people and by her inability to crawl out from her mother’s condescending control.
Nearly every character at the seaside English residential hotel in “Separate Tables” is burdened by some emotional deformity. They do not live here as much as hide out here. David Niven, who won his Best Actor Academy Award for his role in this film, play-acts at being a retired army major, with his “What? What?” and “Cheery-bye” lingo represents a caricature more than a human being, as does the stuffy retired school housemaster, and Mrs. Railton-Bell and her unfortunate daughter. Dame Wendy Hiller, who won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of the hotel’s resident owner, seems the most balanced, flesh-and-blood character in the film.
Miss Kerr’s scenes with David Niven are wonderfully complex. We first see her on a solitary evening stroll, waiting for the Major’s return like a child waiting for the return of a doting father. When her mother warns that her fascination with the Major indicates to others in the hotel that she is pursuing him romantically, Sibyl becomes self conscious and horrified, and a shadow is cast over her only friendship.
When her mother ferrets out the news that the Major has pleaded guilty to charges of “taking liberties” with woman in a local movie theater, and calls a meeting of the other residents to condemn him, Sibyl is stunned and shocked, and eventually when prodded for her opinion, breaks into hysterics. But afterwards, she finds the courage to confront him, and to shakily demand of him, “Why did you do it?” As if to say, why did you spoil everything? Now nothing can be the same.
The innocence of their friendship is lost. However, Sibyl’s innocence is still, remarkably, not lost. She is angry and resentful that he ruined their relationship by exposing his sexual repression, and exposing hers, making both a topic for conversation. Her scene with Rita Hayworth, when she comes to the realization that the Major’s remark that they are really similar in their fears is not far from the mark, and that she is hesitant to even speak the word, “…sex. There. I’ve said it,” is poignantly comic. Sibyl begins to undergo a tiny change now, when her embarrassment turns to compassion and concern and for the Major.
“I just want him to be happy,” she says helplessly, and adds, “God bless you,” when they say goodbye. From this giant step, it takes another giant step to defy her mother, but giant steps seem to come easier for Sibyl when her sympathy for the Major erases her own shyness.
Miss Kerr doesn’t have a lot of room to work with in Sibyl, whose world is so narrow and whose emotions are so brittle. This role must have been a greater challenge than her other more classy roles. It is certainly not romantic, but she shows her range than in “Separate Tables.”
For other tributes to Deborah Kerr, see The Shelf,
Self-Styled Siren
and
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings.
Sibyl is emotionally brittle, shy, nervous and dominated by a manipulative and controlling mother. In this role Miss Kerr manages the unusual combination of appearing hunched over and yet lanky at the same time. She carries herself completely differently than she does in her other mannerly “English rose” type outings. Mousy doesn’t seem quite the word for Sibyl; she is quite emotionally crippled by her own bewilderment at relationships with other people and by her inability to crawl out from her mother’s condescending control.
Nearly every character at the seaside English residential hotel in “Separate Tables” is burdened by some emotional deformity. They do not live here as much as hide out here. David Niven, who won his Best Actor Academy Award for his role in this film, play-acts at being a retired army major, with his “What? What?” and “Cheery-bye” lingo represents a caricature more than a human being, as does the stuffy retired school housemaster, and Mrs. Railton-Bell and her unfortunate daughter. Dame Wendy Hiller, who won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of the hotel’s resident owner, seems the most balanced, flesh-and-blood character in the film.
Miss Kerr’s scenes with David Niven are wonderfully complex. We first see her on a solitary evening stroll, waiting for the Major’s return like a child waiting for the return of a doting father. When her mother warns that her fascination with the Major indicates to others in the hotel that she is pursuing him romantically, Sibyl becomes self conscious and horrified, and a shadow is cast over her only friendship.
When her mother ferrets out the news that the Major has pleaded guilty to charges of “taking liberties” with woman in a local movie theater, and calls a meeting of the other residents to condemn him, Sibyl is stunned and shocked, and eventually when prodded for her opinion, breaks into hysterics. But afterwards, she finds the courage to confront him, and to shakily demand of him, “Why did you do it?” As if to say, why did you spoil everything? Now nothing can be the same.
The innocence of their friendship is lost. However, Sibyl’s innocence is still, remarkably, not lost. She is angry and resentful that he ruined their relationship by exposing his sexual repression, and exposing hers, making both a topic for conversation. Her scene with Rita Hayworth, when she comes to the realization that the Major’s remark that they are really similar in their fears is not far from the mark, and that she is hesitant to even speak the word, “…sex. There. I’ve said it,” is poignantly comic. Sibyl begins to undergo a tiny change now, when her embarrassment turns to compassion and concern and for the Major.
“I just want him to be happy,” she says helplessly, and adds, “God bless you,” when they say goodbye. From this giant step, it takes another giant step to defy her mother, but giant steps seem to come easier for Sibyl when her sympathy for the Major erases her own shyness.
Miss Kerr doesn’t have a lot of room to work with in Sibyl, whose world is so narrow and whose emotions are so brittle. This role must have been a greater challenge than her other more classy roles. It is certainly not romantic, but she shows her range than in “Separate Tables.”
For other tributes to Deborah Kerr, see The Shelf,
Self-Styled Siren
and
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)