Viva Villa!

Viva Villa! is a fictionalized account of the escapades by one of the most prominent generals of the Mexican revolution, Pancho Villa.  As a boy, Pancho’s father spoke out against the Mexican government taking the people’s land and was sentenced to a hundred lashings, killing him in front of the boy.  To avenge his father’s death, Pancho murdered one of the men responsible and ran off into the Mexican hills, becoming a bandit.  He emerges as an adult (portrayed by Wallace Beery), rallying the people of Mexico against a justice system that has too much power and no sympathy.  Pancho befriends an American journalist, Johnny Sykes (Stuart Erwin), who writes about his raids first hand.  But as he becomes more influential, some of the supporters of the revolution do not agree with the way Pancho leads his people.  Though Pancho has good intentions in his fight in the revolution, he comes across mostly as a raiding, womanizing bandit, and must change in order to have a positive influence in Mexican history.

If you are a history buff specializing in the Mexican revolution, you will probably find many, many historical inaccuracies, but the film is more concerned with making Pancho an unforgettable character than preserving history.  Pancho’s womanizing is accurate, in the film we see him hit on multiple senoritas (one played by Fay Wray) and marry two, right out of the blue and half drunk.  One plot twist that I desperately hope is not historically accurate is when Johnny Sykes writes an article proclaiming that Pancho and his troops have stormed and taken a city, when they in fact have not.  Rather than have Sykes own up to his drunken, epic journalism fail, Pancho rallies his troops to make his article true, before the papers are delivered.  Now that is a dedicated friendship.

Wallace Beery’s performance as Pancho is fun and helps give the film a cowboys and Indians feel.  Beery actually first portrayed Pancho in a collection of silent shorts in Patria, from 1917.  Here, he is a brash, boisterous bandit, plundering and killing in the name of justice.  The only things that make Beery look like a Mexican are his sombrero and mustache.  Instead of an accent, he just speaks in short sentences and broken English.  However, it is never misunderstood that Pancho is focused on bringing a better life to his fellow Mexicans, even if his methods feel barbaric.

Viva Villa! was one of the highest grossing film of 1934, and I can see why.  There are laughs, romance, triumph and tragedy all packed into this film.  The film has a level of gun-slinging excitement that appeals to a wide range of audiences, while painting Pancho as hero.  It was nominated for Best Picture, Sound Recording, Writing and won Best Assistant Director at the Oscars.  Today, Viva Villa! is a hard film to find, thankfully I caught it on TCM, but I believe it may be on YouTube as well.

“It ain’t time for me to die yet, Mexico needs me.”

The Gay Divorcee

At first glance, I expected this film to just be an excuse for excessive song and dance numbers.  It is, but that’s not the point.   The point is, I was surprised to find the whole thing very delightful.

First, we meet Guy Holden (Fred Astaire), an American dancer with the capability to burst into song and dance at any moment.  Did dancers really wear tap-shoes out to dinner?  You know, just in case.  Anyway, in that first scene, Guy and his pal Egbert (Edward Everett Horton) are out to dinner in Paris and they’ve forgotten their wallets.  Egbert’s afraid they’ll have to work the meal off by doing dishes (the horror!) so he gets Guy to dance for their dinner.  When the tap number is nearly over, Egbert finds that his wallet was in his coat the entire time.  What a riot!

Alright, laugh it up.  That scene pretty much sets the tone for the whole film: a convoluted song and dance over a slight mix up.  But you know what’s funny?  It is funny!  Every line is delivered with perfect timing, perfect tone and facial expressions that never miss a beat.  The whole film (except for the Lets Knock Knees song) keeps this zany, mixed up comedy that can keep a beat.

So let’s get to the meat of the story.  Guy happens upon Mimi Glossop (Ginger Rogers) in a bit of a pickle, her dress is caught in a locked suitcase.  I guess it’s love at first sight and though Mimi is obviously not interested, Guy decides to comb the city for her.  Luckily, they get into a minor fender bender and she leads him on a little car chase out in the country.  Guy corners Mimi and confesses his love, but Mimi speeds off only leaving him with her name.  Sounds like he’s not getting anywhere, huh?

Mimi has her reasons for speeding off; she’s married.  But it’s an unhappy marriage where she hardly ever sees her husband.  So with the help of her Aunt Hortense (Alice Brady), they hatch a scheme to give the husband cause to divorce Mimi.  They hire an Italian correspondent to make it look like Mimi has been unfaithful, but with a little mix up, Mimi thinks the correspondent is Guy.

Along the way there’s plenty of singing, dancing, jokes and quirky lines that just roll off the actors with ease.  The waiter (Eric Blore) is the best kooky side character I’ve ever seen, I smiled every time he did and laughed at half his lines.  Now, I realize this film may seem like a stretch for most modern viewers, but it’s a lot more fun than you’d expect.  And if I had to be brutally honest, It Happened One Night didn’t live up to my expectations, whereas The Gay Divorcee exceeded them by miles.

“I wonder why he preferred to hunt elephants when he could have married me!”

1934’s Missing Pieces

I’ve got some unhappy news about 1934.  It seems that many of the films nominated that year are very hard to find.  The Barretts of Wimpole, Flirtation Walk, Here Comes the Navy, One Night of Love and The White Parade are all out of my grasp for the moment.  As for Viva Villa, that should be airing on Turner Classic Movies in September, let’s hope they don’t decide to change their programming before then.

But things will be happier later today with my review of The Gay Divorcee.  Stay tuned.

It Happened One Night

Ah yes, the classic that first shaped a romantic comedy.

Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) has just married against her father’s will, so he takes his daughter back to his yacht, only for her to jump ship and try to return to her husband.  Peter Warne (Clark Gable) is an out of work newspaper reporter searching for a real juicy story that will get him back in the game.  Peter and Ellie end up sitting next to each other on a bus and Peter realizes soon who Ellie is and that there’s a search out for her.  Seeing that she’s a spoiled little rich girl, completely helpless and can’t even return to a bus on time, Peter decides to help her out in exchange for the story.  If she doesn’t accept, he’ll let everyone know where she is and she’ll be back with daddy.  Of course, along the way these two charming people fall in love with each other, compromising their original agendas.

Like I said, this is what many people consider to be the first romantic comedy and set a standard (that most today fall far below).  According to It Happened One Night, a good romcom needs:

-two good looking people we can enjoy watching

-put together by fate

-needing each other more as the story progresses, possibly rescuing each other

-a lot of fun moments that help them bond

-a conflict in their eventually realized romance

Am I missing anything?  That sounds like the minimalist sketch of any decent romcom.  Notice how sex jokes, flat characters, bad actors, the guy being a complete dufus, a final chase to the airport and a way too long kiss we all knew was coming with a top pop song of the week playing in the background are not part of that list.

Things are kept respectable, the Walls of Jericho are a prime example of that.  When Ellie and Peter are stuck sharing a little motel room together, it’s obvious they’re uncomfortable with the idea.  So Peter puts up a little clothes line in between and drapes a sheet over it to separate the room in half.  What a gentleman.  And to lighten the mood he dubs their barrier as the Walls of Jericho.  As we watch the relationship between Ellie and Peter grow, we realize the walls between them are starting to tumble, will the Walls of Jericho eventually fall as well?

Another great scene is where the two are trying to hitchhike.  I bet you’ve seen the punch line even without seeing the film.  Peter explains to Ellie the different kinds of hitchhiking that can make you appeal to drivers in different ways.  After a fruitless effort with cars whizzing by, Ellie decides to show him how it’s done.  She simply sticks her leg out and raises her dress to show just enough ankle and calf to get the next car to screech to a halt.  Classic!

Now come on, why wouldn’t you want to see this movie?  It’s got two of the greatest classic film stars together, the plot is engaging, the comedy is hilarious and the whole thing is a fun ride.  Let me put it this way, are you really going to waste your time with The Bounty Hunter this weekend when It Happened One Night can run circles around it in every way?  Here’s a good reason to chose wisely:

“I want to see what love looks like when it’s triumphant. I haven’t had a good laugh in a week.”

The House of Rothschild

Our story begins in Prussia, in the late 1700s, where Jews are confined to a ghetto and taxed heavily.  Living there is a banker with wife and five sons, the Rothschild family.  We see the oppression they’re under, having to hide their good things to look more poor than they are, just so the tax collector won’t take everything.  After getting word that a great deal of money they were waiting for has been taken by the tax collectors, Father Rothschild seems to hit his deathbed and there he tells his sons to go out and start bank branches in the five capital of Europe: London, Paris, Naples, Frankfurt and Vienna.  He believes that if his sons can be influential in Europe’s economy, they can help bring equality to all Jews in Europe.

So, thirty-two years later, the five branches of Rothschild open and Napoleon begins his war.  The brothers provide aid to the allies, eventually defeating Napoleon.  It seems that they really are making the world a better place for all.  But when a huge investment opportunity comes along, the Rothschild’s bid is thrown out on “technicality.”  Leader of the brothers, Nathan (George Arliss), who runs the London branch, understands that technicality is simply being a Jew.  It seems that Europe has will only borrow money from them to end wars, but will not fully invest in them.

Well that’s just two steps back for everyone.  Nathan’s daughter, Julie (Loretta Young) is awaiting approval from her father to marry Fritz (Robert Young), captain of the guard and a gentile.  After that public slap in the face, Nathan won’t let her marry anyone but a Jew.  Of course, with daddy saying no, that just means the young lovers want to be together even more, adding some romance to the otherwise very business and morals story.

So we’ve got a film about how a Jewish family helped better all of Europe and (not to give away the ending, but you can look it up in the history books) never turning their back, even when treated unfairly released in 1934.  Sounds like director Alfred L. Werker had a mission here, and he gets his point across very well.  He shows that the Nazi influence spreading around was only undoing what progress had been made and repeating dark times in history again.

Unfortunately, this film was used against itself.  In 1940, pieces of this film were used in the Nazi propaganda film entitled The Eternal Jew.  The film posed as a documentary, pushing racial tensions and depicting Jews in extremely negative ways.  What a shame to have your work twisted around like that.

Imitation of Life

Bea Pullman (Claudette Colbert) has been taking care of her husband’s maple syrup business since he died, but being a single mother is already enough of a job.  One day, while trying to get her three year old daughter ready for day care, Bea gets a knock on her door.  A large African-American woman is standing there inquiring about a housekeeper job.  Unfortunately, she has the wrong address.  Moments later, they both hear Bea’s daughter falls into the bathtub, her clean dress ready for daycare soaked.  Seeing what a pickle Bea is in, the lady, Delilah (Louise Beavers) offers to be her housekeeper, asking for no more than a place for her and her young daughter to live.  Bea’s hesitant at first, but connecting with the sympathy of being a single mother, she agrees.  This is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

After a while of Bea selling syrup and Delilah taking care of the home running smoothly, Bea hatches a grand idea.  Using Delilah’s amazing pancake recipe, they’ll open a pancake house right on the boardwalk.  At first, it seems they’re way over their heads and can never turn enough profit to keep the place, but just a few years later they’ve got things paid off and talk hopefully about their daughters.

Now for the racial tensions that cause dilemmas.  You see, even though Delilah is very dark, her daughter, Peola (Fredi Washington), is very light skinned.  From an early age, she realizes that she will be held back and accepted less if people know she’s really black, that means none of her friends can know who her mother is.  But when Delilah comes to school one day to bring Peola her rain clothes, her whole class is shocked to see her mother.  As Peola leaves, kids whisper, “I didn’t know she was colored.”  Poor Peola knows she’ll never be treated the same there.

Even more sad, is that Peola takes her anger out on her poor mother.  She openly blames her mother for making her black.  Later, these tensions mount to heartbreaking proportions.

There’s also mother-daughter issues with Bea and Jessie (Rochelle Hudson) as she gets older.  At a business party, Bea meets Steve Archer (Warren William) and they begin a romantic relationship.  But before they get married, Bea wants Steve to win Jessie over, so they can feel like family.  The problem is, Jessie believes that with all the attention Steve is giving her, that they’re falling in love.

Daughters always cause trouble around those late teenager years, don’t they?

As much as I enjoyed the story, I did not care for the acting.  When things turn dramatic, it gets over-dramatic.  Other times, the dialogue during more pressing events seems that it’s delivered way too light.  It made me feel a little uncomfortable when rested upon a solid storyline.

Finally, I have to commemorate this film for being the least blatantly racist film I’ve ever seen from the ‘30s.  I’ve felt like so many films of the decade don’t even realize how horribly racist it can be (I’ve found multiple uses of black-face so far.)  Imitation of Life is the first that tackles the subject straight and it was very refreshing.

I don’t know who to recommend this film to.  If you’re in some racial studies class, this is a gold mine.  If you enjoy working women of yesteryear, this is it.  Perhaps this could be a good mother-daughter bonding movie as well.  May I suggest making pancakes for the occasion?

“After all, what’s the good of algebra and all that stuff to a girl?”

The Thin Man

Mystery, murder, laughs and love.  The Thin Man has it all and a dog to top it off.

When inventor Mr. Wynant hears the good news that his daughter, Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) is getting married, he goes to fetch the savings bonds he’s been saving for her, only to find them missing.  After a fruitless search and a fight with his wife, she is found dead and he goes missing.  Poor Dorothy is worried sick about her father and asks an old friend of her family’s Nick Charles (William Powell) a former detective to help look for him.

Now, Nick has been out of the detective game for a few years and he’s not willing to just go barreling into a murder case.  It’s really his wife, Nora (Myrna Loy) who convinces him to get involved with the case.  Her reason?  It’s all terribly exciting!  Of course, when things get dangerous she has her second thoughts, but Nick can’t back out.  That would be chicken.

Nick is an interesting fellow.  He’s cocky, smart and is usually three steps ahead of everyone, but when he isn’t his luck and quick wits make him seem like it was all part of the plan.  It’s always kinda fun how that just turns out.  His wife, Nora shares the same type of charm.  She’s always supportive, but often with a thin layer of sarcasm and can worry about her husband in dangerous situations.  Let’s not forget the baby in the family; the couple has a cute little dog, Asta, who accompanies Nick and even helps uncover some big clues.

The film feels like comedy noir.  There’s a good mix of crime, comedy, drama and mystery that keeps fresh and exciting until the end.  The great amount of comedy keeps the whole film light, but not flimsy.  And of course, Powell and Loy make a great duo any day as they did in many, many films.

I recommend this film to anyone who wants to see what a good comedy/mystery can be.  Today, this genre is one that isn’t taken seriously.  Ace Ventura could fit in this category.  And we’ve all heard of rounding up all the suspects for dinner to see who’s guilty, this film that scene best.

“That’s a girl with hair on her chest.”

Cleopatra

Cecil B. DeMille directing Cleopatra.

First off, if you’ve seen the 1963 version of this film, you don’t need to see this one.  If you’ve seen this one, you shouldn’t waste six hours of your life on ‘63’s.  The main differences are color, actors and length.

With an elementary understanding of ancient history, you already know the plot to Cleopatra.  Julius Caesar (Warren William) has been expanding the Roman Empire, but Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) still holds Egypt.  Cleopatra seduces Caesar with the idea of combining their empires and they both rule as king and queen, which of course grants Caesar to more royalties with the beautiful Queen of the Nile.  How could he say no?

But the Roman Senate with Brutus and Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) realize what a horrible idea this is and plot to kill Caesar.  (Et tu Brute?)  With Caesar dead, it looks like Cleopatra’s plan to become Empress over Rome is dead as well, so she scampers off to her elaborate boat to Egypt.  Marc Antony is elected to negotiate with her, but Cleopatra’s more cunning than that and it’s onto seducing Roman leader number two.

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, Cleopatra is a sight to see.  From the sprawling sets, the elaborate parades and the throngs of girls in grass skirts that serve as cheap animal entertainment it’s all pretty eye popping, even in black and white.  The battle scenes are surprisingly exciting and more graphic than I expected.  The great use of quick editing and some well choreographed shots really goes a long way here.  Just further proof that you don’t need everything CGI or slow motion to make it exciting.

The musical score goes a long way in this film, especially in one of my favorite scenes on board Cleopatra’s ship.  The shot starts on her throne and moves backwards through the ship showing a beautiful display of her servants running around, men rowing on two levels and finally the man beating the drum to row to.  It’s all done to sweeping music, with drum beats being very dramatic crashes.  It’s one of those moments where your eyes just grow wider and wider, you wish they could just float right out of your head.

I think most people today would be surprised how much they would enjoy this film.  It is not boring, yet, most of us know what’s going to happen.  I found it very visually inspiring, perhaps one of the best visual black and white films I’ve seen.

And everything is big.  Big sets, big action, big idea and all done very well.

If you think you’d rather watch the ‘63 version of Cleopatra, just don’t.  That review won’t be coming up for a while, but here’s a little tip: six hours is far too long to put up with Elizabeth Taylor’s overacting.  I felt like it was trying to one up DeMille and Ben Hur at the same time.  The attempt can be best described as EPIC FAIL.  See a great piece of DeMille’s work instead.

“It certainly couldn’t be me, queens don’t hiccup.”