Men of the Thirties: 1935

The Nominees Were:

Clark Gable - Mutiny on the Bounty
Charles Laughton - Mutiny on the Bounty
Victor McLaglen - The Informer
Paul Muni - Black Fury
Franchot Tone - Mutiny on the Bounty

And the Winner Was:

Victor McLaglen - The Informer

The Mutiny on the Bounty guys fairly obviously split votes here, since none of them really stand out as the obvious pick. Paul Muni's write-in nomination for Black Fury meant that he had a lot of fans but was battling against a massive resurgence for John Ford's film. The Informer was a financial failure but virtually everybody with any influence in LA was raving about it. Victor McLaglen's win is partly a product of this and surely because his role is much more of a one-man show than the others.

My Ratings (in order of preference):-

**** Franchot Tone in Mutiny on the Bounty

While caught at the centre of a struggle between a tyrannical Captain and his increasingly concerned first mate, Tone's eager midshipman features a lot less than he ought to and is often left in the shade in favour of the more obvious 'characters' of the piece. Nevertheless, his presence is a valuable one, and as the most grounded character within a very fervently political environment, the honest, loyal remonstrations against mutiny feel integral to the film's ideas about what 'serving' your country really means. Tone charts the arc of his surefire, adaptable Byam in moving from a position of anti-idealism to a much more sceptical outlook on institutional hierarchy, and learns his lesson the hard way.

*** Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty

Laughton's silliness reached its peak with royalty in 1933 and, while Captain Bligh aboard the Bounty would never purport to be anything other than a stern nobleman, his monstrous actions are a flimsy way of setting up the ethical dilemnas that plague the film's second half. Parts of Laughton's Bligh are successful: he's predictable, emotionally-disposable, only harmful through position, and kind of reminded me of Captain Manwairing in Dad's Army (i.e. laughably hypocritical). Is this enough? Mutiny is let down a tad by its own narrow-minded views about villainry and Laughton does nothing to suggest that Bligh is battling with ethics himself, or indeed considering anything outside of his power-trip duty. In the end he plays up to Lloyd's emphasis on accessibility, the easier option but possibly also a wise one.

*** Victor McLaglen in The Informer

The protestations of innocence by Victor McLaglen's guilty Gypo are far too easily-read for a higher rating here, and honestly the film is less about his character than an examination of culture and community politics. The gentle giant is not quite on the level of Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, whose character required him to be meek and little else. McLaglen has to process the guilt of Gypo and does so with the kind of bumbling brashness that makes The Informer seem all the more harsher and imposing. Detrimentally, this makes him stick out like a sore thumb and takes away some of the ambiguity that might have richened the production had a patient, introspective Actor took this role on.

** Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty

There's not much wisdom to be seen in Clark Gable, and the plucky humanitarianism of Fletcher Christian strikes up a much different, wholesome Clark to the one that we're accustomed to. It's difficult to believe that Christian's sudden and rather drastic overhaul of the Bounty was borne out of pure empathy, and one considers that the first mate may be impatient in aspiration, deluded even. Gable doesn't really allude to any unknown motivation, and his fatal flaw is toning down his renowned dastardly charisma in favour of a more dull, reluctant 'hero'. Certainly acceptable as an unwilling moral crusader yet strangely vapid when interacting with Laughton, his best work emerging in the quiet moments with Tone.

Nominees Unseen:

Paul Muni - Black Fury

The Snubbed

**** Robert Donat in The 39 Steps

It's incredibly impressive that guys are still using the techniques of Donat as Richard Hannay, one of the original innocents on the run. The 39 Steps is one of Hitchcock's most watchable films and like The Lady Vanishes seems anti-try hard, easy to follow and digest, charming in the most ballsy, unexpected ways. Its caper style often put me off a little but Donat is inspired in these moments, bang-on tonally, effortlessly funny, the perfect 'wrong man'. And yet as a hero he is thoroughly dynamic, sexy in spontanaeity, and one of Hitch's most appealing screen protagonists he alternates from being a 'man's man' and a 'ladies man' with such ease that it's hardly surprising he was a big box-office draw in this period.

Men of the Thirties: 1932-33

1932-33

The Nominees Were...Leslie Howard - Berkeley Square
Charles Laughton - The Private Life of Henry VIII
Paul Muni - I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

The Winner Was...


Charles Laughton - The Private Life of Henry VIII

My Ratings (in order of preference):-

***** Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

As an unwilling rebel against a questionable and heavily-criticised judicial system, Paul Muni is a near-revelation in Mervyn LeRoy's I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Muni gives his wronged man the kind of naive, grounded appeal that heroes always need; that instinctive, direct way of looking at the world, and a degree of intolerance for people and situations that complicate that notion. He convincingly dissects his new situation, initially making James a petulant passenger in the chain gang before a sturdy realisation that to conquer it he must take charge. Fugitive is not as scathing as one would think: James' entry into jail is the primary force in his eventual achievements outside of it, and while the film ploughs on with such capable finesse and ease of storytelling Muni seems to be the perfect central element to its poltiical motivations, a product of his own victimisation.

***

Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

Surely there isn't a more definitive screen version of Henry VIII than this 1933 tour-de-force? As well as looking remarkably like the man himself Laughton chews on drumsticks and spits orders with the self-righteous bravura of a man consumed by inherent, ingrained arrogance, and raucously chomps at the bit when surveying the womenfolk too. My problems with the film stem from its rushed desire to pack every juicy bit of history into ninety very stagy minutes, and Laughton himself doesn't really help in this regard. His mannered approach occasionally feels cartoonish, and his effective moments usually come in the form of comedy. A good performance but nothing exceptional.

*

Leslie Howard in Berkeley Square (1933)

The toe-in-the-water exploration of the absurd Berkeley Square requires Leslie Howard to be: a) besotted with the idea of his own ancestry, b) besotted with a member of his own ancestry, and c) infuriated with both a and b. Infuriation is something Leslie Howard can only demonstrate with the snarl of a terrier puppy, and even the stuffiness of the film's setting and subject cannot make his efforts feel beyond first base. I am generally a Leslie fan but he feels as if he's acting in a glass box here, understandably unsure of his film's bizarre intentions but fatally unable to eek out any belief for his character's fascinations or sympathy for the predicament he gets himself into.

 

The Snubbed

***

Warner Baxter in 42nd Street (1933) 

The academy don't really like men in musicals. William Powell in The Great Ziegfeld (not exactly a "musical" but about musical theatre) similarly found himself on the wrong side of a snub, and that was for a film about HIM. 42nd Street is also more concerned with women and theatricality than the man who must hold it all together, Warner Baxter. Baxter isn't wonderful but he does draw attention to the frantic, fragile nature of showbusiness and the line between success and failure, and responds to each mini-disaster with the level of comic resignation that takes envy and shoves it down your throat.

**

Nils Asther in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

This beastly pet-figure of reluctant lust for heroine Barbara Stanwyck would later be modestly improved upon by Yul Brynner in Walter Lang's The King and I. Asther's stoney stern glare (as if he were telling off a small child), and satisfyingly smug closed-grin seem to be the faces of choice, and as such he loops them throughout The Bitter Tea, making his General Yen somebody fundamentally formidable, but never really expanding upon the barbarism that tarnishes his acceptability. A late scene shows promise but in general he's one of the main reasons why the film doesn't work.

The Men of June

Since I frequently go on about Actresses on this blog, and truthfully tend to lean towards them when choosing my "high priority" rentals, I've been trying to redeem my neglect of the men of cinema. I made a conscious decision a few weeks ago to catch up on the Leading Actor nominees of the 1930's, which range from tyrannical monarchs to alcoholic lawyers to double-persona scientists.

This testerone-heavy experiment has therefore led me to proclaim June as the "Men of the Thirties" month on this blog, in which I'll throw some stats out and analyse the nominated performances that I did manage to catch. As per usual, the eventual winners of the prize are often bewildering but I'll save the bitching until later on.