The Razor’s Edge

The average American life can be a real rat race.  First, there’s school, which prepares you for work, which makes you money.  How well you do in school determines the kind of work you do which then determines the amount of money you make.  Money creates class and more money gives you a higher class.  Yes, it is all so simple, but monotonous.  What happens if one just forgoes all these rules and lives life not by money or class achievement but by a wide range of experiences and spiritual enlightenment?

In The Razor’s Edge, based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, Larry (Tyrone Power) has just returned from the war, with quite a load on his mind.  He was saved by a comrade on the last day of the war and feels bad that he doesn’t know what to do with the life his friend gave for him.  For that kind of sacrifice, the traditional working American life just doesn’t seem fulfilling to Larry.  The problem in this story is that Larry is engaged to a self-centered, high class girl, Isabel (Gene Tierney).  Her family even throws a swanky party in Larry’s honor, with her uncles offering him jobs.  To their disappointment, he turns them down and decides to travel the world to find himself and make his life one of a kind.

After a year of letting Larry soul search in Paris, living on less than three grand a year, Isabel breaks off her engagement to him and marries Gray(John Payne).  They live the life Isabel has dreamed of: high class, nice house with lots of money.  That is happiness, right?

As Isabel lives her normal life, Larry is having all kinds of adventures.  Rather than having a soft job, he decides to work as a coal miner for a while for the experience.  Later, he follows a co-worker’s advice to go to India to find enlightenment.  There he meets a wise old man, with that air of Indian mysticism, who helps Larry expand his knowledge.  While Larry has been living on a mountain, meditating and seeking enlightenment, tragedy is unfolding back home.  His old friend, Sophie (Anne Baxter) has just lost her husband and child in an auto accident.  Suddenly, everything she has worked for in life is gone.  She has to sell everything to survive and turns into an alcoholic at rock bottom.  Her rich friends, like Isabel, take pity but look down on Sophie too much to offer any real help.

When Larry finally feels enlightened enough, he returns home with his newfound wisdom and becomes the only person who honestly wants to help Sophie.  By now, everyone else has written poor Sophie off as low class lost cause.  To top everything off, Isabel becomes jealous that Sophie’s life getting back on track.

There is a great scene where Isabel uses her wealth, husband, and children against Sophie.  She dangles them in front of her face, knowing that those things that fate has taken from Sophie are what set them apart in class.  Pardon my language, but it is such a bitchy move that simply enrages me.  Even worse, we can see the same thing happening all the time in our lives today.  People really do find comfort in their materialized good luck and find themselves looking down on those less fortunate.

While The Razor’s Edge tries to be an inspiring film about letting go of social and economic worries to find true happiness, it comes off as preachy and slightly cheesy.  I do agree with Larry’s adventurous choice in lifestyle, but realize that not all of us can just fly off somewhere and live in the mountains.  Unfortunately today, we  associate this behavior with Eat, Pray, Love and replace ideas of enlightenment with Julia Roberts living it up.  Nonetheless, travel is not required for one to find new experiences and have a spiritual journey.  Let yourself have a day out of the monotonous rat race and just relax for a while.  There is a spiritual need to slow down, be closer to nature and enjoy life.

“As long as men set their ideals on the wrong object, there will be no true happiness.”

Alexander’s Ragtime Band

We first see Roger (Tyrone Power) having just finished conducting a classical concert.  The ladies try to get near him and his proud old professor tries to give the young man some advice, but he brushes them aside.  He and his band pals Charlie (Don Ameche) and Davey (Jack Haley) have an audition to get to.

At Dirty’s Eddie’s a band has just been kicked out by the owner when Stella Kirby (Alice Faye) arrives hoping for a job singing in the joint.  She tells the bartender she’s got some new music straight from New York.  While she’s catching up with an old friend, Roger and his band show up missing their music.  The bartender hands them Stella’s music entitled Alexander’s Ragtime Band.

Now, these boys are used to playing classical, more serious music.  As they begin to play, they ask, “What time is this?” The music is stiff for a few seconds before Roger tells them, “Swing into it.”  It isn’t long before Stella realizes they’re playing the new music she brought and fumes.  She gets up and starts singing with the band, not wanting to lose her own audition.  Before the boys can tell Stella to get lost, the owner hires all of them.  In that moment, they have become Alexander’s Ragtime Band with Roger replacing his name to the lead Alexander.

Though they’ve got the job, it’s not smooth sailing.  Alex and Stella are at each other’s throats at first.  She thinks he’s a snob and he thinks she is too crass.  There’s a great power struggle scene where Alex is trying to make Stella’s costume look classier, but she won’t budge and knows what keeps the audience entertained.  Throughout their fights, Charlie keeps the peace and plays referee.

Soon, a love triangle forms.  Charlie falls for Stella and writes a beautiful song for her, but as she sings it during a performance, she and Alex realize their love for each other.  Their romance is sweet, especially when they incorporate their feuds.  Nothing like embracing and telling your love, “And that’s for all the times I wanted to break your neck.”

With Charlie approving of Alex and Stella’s relationship and the band about to grab the ear of Broadway producer Charles Dillingham (Joseph King), everything seems smooth sailing.  Unfortunately, Dillingham only wants to put Stella on Broadway and soon after the rest of the band gets recruited into the army for WWI.  The rest of the film follows changes through the roaring twenties and days of prohibition where Alex tries to become a post war success and Stella tries to make up for lost time.

I believe I’m finally starting to warm up to these 1930’s musicals.  Either that or Alexander’s Ragtime Band is simply a film that cannot work without all the ragtime numbers spread throughout.  One of the great things about this film is that the plot doesn’t come to a dead stop for each musical number.  Many times they’re part of the action, like when Alex and Stella realize their affections and Stella runs off the stage mid-song and Alex simply hands his baton to Charlie to go after her.  Later, the army’s shows finale doubles as the troops deployment.  Talk about improvising.

In the end, Alexander’s Ragtime Band is an engaging story through the 1910s and 20’s.  Our emotions are pulled and pushed between the love story, Stella’s stage career and Alex’s rise from ruin.  Just like in the audition at Dirty Eddie’s, the band would not have worked without Stella’s voice, and the film cannot go on without the Oscar winning music.

“Just because you can stand here and shout you know everything about music.”

Witness for the Prosecution

Directed by Billy Wilder and based off Agatha Christie’s play, Witness for the Prosecution is an intriguing courtroom drama full of well thought out characters, engaging dialogue and plot that delivers surprise after surprise.

British lawyer, Sir Wilfred Robarts (Charles Laughton), has just been released from the hospital after suffering a heart attack that put him in a coma for two months.  He has a nurse (Elsa Lanchester) fussing over him every minute begging him to take it easy for a while, but when a juicy murder case comes up, the wily old man cannot resist.

Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) is accused of murdering a rich widow, whom he met by chance, befriended and idly hoped for an endorsement on his eggbeater invention.  The fact that he did not mention his marriage to her and that she left him a great deal of money looks like he led her on.  Leonard swears he is innocent and had no ill intentions.  The only person that can back up his alibi is his wife, Christine (Marlene Dietrich).

Christine is a cold, calculating type of person from Germany.  It turns out that she was already married when she went through a marriage ceremony with Leonard.  This means that she can testify in court on his behalf, but the whole case is turned on end when she instead decides to be a witness for the prosecution, brutally incriminating Leonard.

Charles Laughton earned a nomination for playing Wilfred as such a wonderful, crafty old man.  The way he slips away from his nurse, hides his cigars and brandy is just like any stubborn man.  He’s genuinely quirky and fun when he discovers his new lift for the staircase and rides it up and down.  His monocle test to see if Leonard and Christine are telling the truth is smart, intriguing and shows us that Wilfred has some interesting tricks up his sleeve.

Witness for the Prosecution is one of the best courtroom dramas I have ever seen.  The way flashbacks are set up throughout the film makes it feel more like a mystery, giving us pieces of the puzzle along the way.  All the characters feel real and intriguing, never flat and they never deliver stale or wooden dialogue.  The whole film seems to move like an old train, slow and chugging at first, but then flying at top speed at the very end, where a sudden twist creates a screech of metal on metal, nearly throwing the whole train off the tracks.  Sorry for the train metaphor, but the ending is so surprising and great that the voice during the credits politely asked me not to give anything away.  My lips are sealed.  You need to see this film.

“I am constantly surprised that women’s hats do not provoke more murders.”

 

In Old Chicago

The legend in Chicago goes that it was one of Mrs. O’Leary’s cows that started the great Chicago fire in 1871.  This film gives a little more history and drama to that infamous family.

We meet the O’Leary’s in a covered wagon heading toward Chicago.  The young boys get excited at the sight of a train and encourage their father to race it.  Bad idea.  The horses get spooked, break away from the wagon and drag poor old dad for a while.  With his dying breath, he tells his sons that they will be great men of Chicago.

So yeah, early on we see these people don’t have the best luck with animals.

In Chicago, Mrs. O’Leary makes money by running a washing business and her sons grow up to become hardworking men.  Jack (Don Ameche) becomes an honest lawyer who’s proud of his work but doesn’t alway get paid since he represents families down on their luck.  Dion (Tyrone Power) is a rogue, enjoys the saloon life and pursues the beautiful dancer Belle (Alice Faye).  His techniques are brash, intrusive and should get him arrested, but every time Belle’s ultra-stereotype-black-girl-helper runs to get a police officer she returns to the couple making out.

As the story unfolds, Dion opens the best saloon in town, The Senate, and runs his competitor into running for mayor, asking Dion to help with his campaign.  The problem is that Jack is running as well, so it seems that the brothers will be competing.  Or will they?  Whatever, watch and find out.  In the end, we know there will be the great Chicago fire.

At the time, this was the most expensive film ever produced.  The depictions of the great fire is probably what made this film so expensive.  The fires are daring and frightening.  The chaos in the streets is done wonderfully.

The musical numbers aren’t anything special, but I did finally learn the words to In Old Chicago.  Wait, wasn’t this motif used the previous year in San Francisco?  You know, named after the song in it about the city and in the end a great disaster strikes.  Way too similar, it even has the protagonist do that long walk among desperate displaced people looking for someone.  My suggestion, go with the city you’re most connected to.  If you feel equally impartial to both, San Francisco is better and doesn’t feel like a copycat.