Nuns, of the Lusty Variety

Prolific Oscar nominee Meryl Streep, who turned sixty last month, was the last woman to be nominated for portraying a nun. Along with Amy Adams she's the latest in a long line of women to wear the habit, to name but a few: Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's, Susan Sarandon's victorious turn in Dead Man Walking, and possibly most famously Whoopi Goldberg as showgirl-turned-saint Sister Mary Clarence in the Sister Act series. Deborah Kerr famously played two on-screen nuns, first in Black Narcissus (1947) and secondly opposite Robert Mitchum in Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957)(for the latter she received an Oscar nomination and both performances earned her the top prize from the New York Film Critics).

Despite both roles requiring Deborah to express an introspective grapple with the constraints of each nun's commitment to God the two roles require much different work from her. John Huston's Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison initially bothered me rather a lot; Mitchum as a WWII navy Corporal gets washed up on a desert island (presumably somewhere near Japan) where he meets the sole inhabitant, Kerr's Sister Angela. She appears indifferent towards his arrival, perplexed even, yet the following weeks see them engage in what is some heavily intense interaction for people who have just met each other, allbeit in what becomes a quest for survival against Japanese attack. Questions are begged: What was Sister Angela doing before his arrival? Making cups of green tea and playing Patience? How has the solitude affected her? How does she react to no longer being alone?

This is another African Queen, breezy and bright, treading lightly over old ground in the culture clash/missionary propaganda/opposites attract fun of its predecessor, but it is rather maddening that Huston's film seems so unconcerned with its characters adaptation into a wild unknown. Instead we're treated to a kind of moral compromise (one that takes way too long), whereby Allison learns to think carefully and have faith and Angela is encouraged to let loose and pay more attention to what's going on around her. Kerr demonstrates the naivety of Angela with silly Irish broad that articulates either her worrisome distress -- "Ohhhh, Mister Aaaaaalison" -- or the kind of uptight matronly banter she's stripped of by the time the closing credits roll.

The film's killer scene occurs fairly late on, and is the closest thing that Heaven Knows gets to displaying the primal nakedness of the characters' desires and frustrations. Responding to Mitchum's drunken petulance over a draughts game, which is blatantly leading to darker and more sinister advances, Kerr's hesitant mustering of the line "You don't want to play draughts?" is both blackly hilarious and scarily resilient. Despite previously denying any feeling for Allison her desperation to preserve his integrity in her mind is rather astounding, and Kerr completely nails this part of Angela, and in the process helps to make Heaven Knows a much more fluid, natural and worthwhile exercise.

Aside from this scene, Kerr is given an altogether fluffier arc than she was in Black Narcissus (a decade earlier) where Sister Clodagh, and her feelings for the local totty Mr. Dean, are decidedly less lucid. Clodagh (a much more impersonal and mysterious moniker as it is) sums up the relative inpenatrability of the woman herself, who uses her habit as more of a hiding place, a reserved place of judgement. Given a quest to set up a nunnery up in the cloudy peaks of the Himalayas, Clodagh's Mother Superior voices her concerns over whether the young nun is emotionally secure and selfless enough to succeed.

Black Narcissus is gorgeous; eery, mythical, alien, and its estrangement from civilisation re-enforces the idea of this place as independent of 'life', free of context, suspended in time. It is Clodagh's job to stay grounded and remind her nuns that they are still under God's watchful eye, even though she too is becoming more enamoured with the place and less reliant upon religion. Her main focus is upon reforming the "ill" Sister Ruth, who it has presumed has been questioning her commitment to the cause before the journey through the mountains. Told to "spare her some of your own importance... if you can" by the Mother Superior (yes, the film is rather bitchy) you can see Kerr trying to maintain the immovable composure and morality in a way of regressing to a default state of mind. But as familiarity and rigid practice make Clodagh an unpopular figure in the mountains (particularly among a certain man) she has to rethink her methods.

Kerr never really explodes emotively but depicts the bubbling pot through irksome discomfort, and confirms without ever admitting so that she isn't enough of an evolved person to cope with her own desire for freedom, never mind the wandering outlook of her cloaked clan. This reaches a messy head with the elemental Sister Ruth (played fiercely and brilliantly by Kathleen Byron), who seeks to make Clodagh pay for her loosening affections for Mr. Dean, whom she also has an eye for. Ruth is treated as a mental basket case but ends up being the most valuable and emotionally in-touch member of the film, angry of attempts to suppress her, clear in her love for Dean, aware of her leader's hypocrisy and fatefully jealous of it. Kerr is more wise to this than one might first think, and as Narcissus reaches a bitter climax she understands Clodagh's relief at exiting the situation with her authority intact, however compromised her moral position has become.

Heaven Knows Mr. Allison - B-

Deborah Kerr - ***

Black Narcissus - B+

Deborah Kerr - ****

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.

Hottest Track: The Maccabees - Can You Give It?

Michael Jackson [1958-2009] R.I.P.

Men of the Thirties: 1934

1934


The Nominees Were:

Clark Gable - It Happened One Night
Frank Morgan - The Affairs of Cellini
William Powell - The Thin Man


And the Winner Was:

Clark Gable - It Happened One Night

Clark Gable rode the It Happened One Night lovefest to a victory in his very first nomination, and considering he was just 34 and in a distinctly comedic role Gable is a fairly atypical Leading Actor winner. William Powell and Frank Morgan look like fillers in comparison, since Cellini didn't make much of a splash and The Thin Man was well-liked but hardly represented at the ceremony a great deal. Leslie Howard somehow wasn't nominated despite giving two of my favourite performances by an Actor in the entire decade.

My Ratings (in order of preference):-

**** Clark Gable in It Happened One Night

Many of Gable's performances require him to make a bad first impression, and the remainder of the running time involves him charming the pants off us for a re-evaluation. It's no more effective than in It Happened One Night, where his cheeky, sleazy smile reels in Claudette Colbert's willing runaway and sets up what is a killer partnership. His rogue-ish "qualities" of ambivalence and effortless self-sufficiency are pushed to the limit in Capra's frenetic comedy, but Gable seems to bask and enjoy the fun and games of what was labelled "the first screwball". Most of the film feels so gloriously impulsive because of the electricity between the leads, and as a man estranged (intentionally or not) from social etiquette and token quibbles, Gable's attitude is perfect for the role and the film.

*** William Powell in The Thin Man

The film is more a victory for the script than anything else, and one might argue that The Thin Man could have done with lighter and more able actors. Still, Powell as a detective of a maddeningly messy but occasionally hilarious mystery generally succeeds in giving the farce the energy and dryness that's dismissive in tone but rarely encourages us to think outside of the madness. Like Gable, his chemistry with the film's leading lady, Myrna Loy, also elevates the piece, and ensures that The Thin Man, while not always coherent, really gives you a fun-filled time.

Nominees Unseen:

Frank Morgan - The Affairs of Cellini

The Snubbed

**** Leslie Howard in The Scarlet Pimpernel

As the Georgian caped crusader Leslie Howard treats his role exactly how it should be treated, emphasising the fun and flair of his socialite and man of the people. He fiendishly reverts from the tailor-obsessed Lord Percy Blakeney, whom he passes off as a vain, brainless toff, to a man at the head of a network of resistants to the French revolt. Although the film does not chart Percy's transformation into the Pimpernel (a la Batman Begins etc.) Howard gives him the err of someone so immersed in his own culture and yet, on some level, resentful of it. The nasally, pompous voice he puts on is a gratuitous caricature and certainly a knowing, satirical representation of an ambivalent England, and is one of the funniest creations I've seen in a long while.

**** Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage writer Somerset Maugham must surely have been seeking closure when he penned the unflinching depiction of a very one-sided relationship. While Bette Davis gets all of the juicy lines and showy outbursts, and gives it all of the gusto you'd expect, as a cruel and tactless receiver of love she meets her match in Leslie Howard's persistent, affectionate, sorry Philip. Though very choppily made, to the extent where the film feels more of a montage of their relationship than a chronicle or study, Howard nails the physical hangups of Philip (he has a club foot) and reacts to every lie, scold, and shun with the pain of a mortal wound, and through his defeat somehow manages to extricate a lifetime of self-conscious discomfort.

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.

Continuing the Old Theme...

I'm clearly in classic mode. Updating of the website has been very slow over the last few months, but I've managed to create pages for all years between 1937 and 1942, so if you're interested whether I think How Green Was My Valley should really have beaten Citizen Kane, you can now see. Hopefully, write-ups will ensue for some of these films, and I'm planning to integrate some awards into the pages -- although this will probably just be winners for now since the amount of films from these years is hardly substantial.

Men of the Thirties: 1931-32

1931-32

The Nominees Were:

Wallace Beery - The Champ
Alfred Lunt - The Guardsman
Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

And the Winner Winners was were...

Wallace Beery - The Champ
Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In an extraordinary year, the majority of the Leading Actor nominees actually won, with Beery and March sharing the accolade. Fredric March is the true winner, since he got just one vote more than Wallace's Champ, but the then-rules stipulated that if a competitor was within a certain number the contest would be deemed a tie. After frantically searching for a spare statuette for Beery, he too got a speech, and Alfred Lunt remained the only bridesmaid of the trio.

My Ratings (in order of preference):-

**** Wallace Beery in The Champ (1931)

One half of the gentle giant-cute kid partnership Champ demonstrates paternity in different ways, caught between a desire to ingrain Dink into the only way of life that he knows (as an attempt to keep up a "legacy" that's paper thin anyway), and a realisation that Dink needs a more stable and (for lack of a better word) childish childhood. Beery's reaction to suggestions the kid would be better off with his mother is stubborn but with a hint of conciliation, and he conveys the esteem issues of Champ and his failed boxing career without giving the audience too strong a sense of where the film is going. His chief scene comes after admitting to himself that Dink would be better off elsewhere, and in true macho fashion Champ cannot bear to seem weak in front of his child, opting instead to admonish him and make him seem like a burden. Beery plays this scene incredibly well, and after slapping the kid gives a devastatingly effective wince, the obvious regret halting every ounce of anger you could have had for this troubled but ultimately noble man.

**** Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Rouben Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde would undoubtedly be a multiple winner had the make-up category been introduced sooner. March's transformation between Professor and monster is a cosmetic feat for the time and surely contributive to the effect and popularity of his performance. The manneristic qualities of March, however, are perhaps more striking and integral to his double-persona; the arrogant delight that transcends from the welcome danger and escape of the Doctor to the aggressive primordial revelling of his creation. And the rather obvious switch-up from physical refinement to ape-ish predictability serves him well as it feels particularly parallel to the literary tone of the film. March seems very aware of Robert Louis Stevenson's orginal narrative and the storytelling style of director Mamoulian, and is dynamic without ever taking over the film, becoming an example of the fine line between genius and madness and the increasingly powerless victim of his own dark desires.

Nominees Unseen:

Alfred Lunt - The Guardsman (1931)

The Snubbed

**** Jackie Cooper in The Champ (1931)

If Cooper's performance in Skippy was a mini-revelation it's blown right out of the water in The Champ, a film in which he's largely let down by his irresponsible drunken father. Cooper gives Dink a similarly caretaking mentality, and in reacting to disappointment his pet lip runs into overdrive. Yet these moments are only brief, and it soon becomes clear that Dink is incapable of being truly broken like his father, instead reacting to every situation with the faux-common sensical approach of Champ. The fact that the boy only ever refers to his father as "Daddy" in one scene solidifies the sense of them as unified through circumstance rather than obligation. The final scene of The Champ is hard-hitting, and Cooper absoloutely nails it, devastatingly effective as someone finally failed by something completely beyond his control.

**** Robert Williams in Platinum Blonde (1931)

I'm somewhat surprised that Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde did not receive a single nomination, since it certainly feels to me in the same level of quality and similar in theme to his other thirties films. A story of culture and class clashes and the questionable morals of the newspaper business, Platinum Blonde provides a great deal for leading man Robert Williams to eschew over (two women and his diminishing masculinity for a start) and he gladly channels this into a charismatic character that has perhaps been entrenched in his work for too long.

Williams handles his arc well, reluctant at every step, and while the film treats his decline into a position under the thumb of the insistent Jean Harlow a little too swiftly and severely, he helps us to understand the man's belief in his own infallability as inherently working class and independent. He underplays his concessions and diminishes their effect with redundant sarcastic protests and faux-'Jack the lad' charm, and ably expresses the cultural naivety with which his newspaperman approaches his first relationship with a socially-superior woman.

*** Paul Muni in Scarface (1932)

If you've seen Muni's nominated performances, most of which feature after this, it's difficult to believe that they actually rate as comparatively restrained. In Scarface he twists his face with sour putrid, and undoubtedly performs the part of Tony Ferino with a 'MORE is more' attitude, making every aggressive outburst feel like some kind of seizure. It would be fair to say that, to an extent, it works: Muni gives us smugness, possessiveness, and paranoia with the flagrant generosity of a man that knows he's there for show, menacingly apt when you consider the dangerous reputation of his volatile gangster. But there's always such a nagging methodology to Muni that extends to other performances (allbeit in a banal, less valuable context) that makes Tony appear too outrospectively emotive, treating every situation too dramatically, to the point where I don't trust that he fully considers Tony's desire to hold onto his untouchable status.

Hottest Track: The Gossip - Heavy Cross

Men of the Thirties: 1930-31

1930-31

The Nominees were...

Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul
Jackie Cooper - Skippy
Richard Dix - Cimarron
Fredric March - The Royal Family of Broadway
Adolphe Menjou - The Front Page

And the Winner was...

Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul

Lionel Barrymore's nomination as director of Madame X in the previous 1929-30 ceremony may just have swung the vote in a diverse year for Leading male nominees. There's also the fact that he is very flawed in the film (an alcoholic and bad father) whereas the others, while hardly whiter-than-whiter, are certainly less sympathetic in their actions. Eight year-old Jackie Cooper remains the youngest person to receive a nomination in a Leading Role.

My ratings and assessments (in order of preference):-

*** Jackie Cooper in Skippy (1931)

It's well-documented that director Norman Taurog got ten year-old Jackie Cooper to cry during a scene by threatening to shoot the boy's dog. A harsh move, and one that suggests Cooper's performance is more trained than natural. As it happens, Cooper single-handedly sustains the interest of the film and ably carries it with such brash, clumsy charm, flummoxed at the unpreventable nature and lack of justification for poverty, slaughter, hostility, that sometimes can only be articulated through the innocence of a child. Cooper has the maturity to know that his Skippy must be a constant activist, and although you can't really imagine someone as outgoing and streetwise belonging to the meek, conservative parents to which he's attached, it's astonishing how much he seems to know the people around him. It's no wonder that whomever he interacts with seems genuinely privileged to be in his company.

*** Adolphe Menjou in The Front Page (1931)

Menjou features in barely a handful of scenes in The Front Page's opening hour, but the constant reference to his character in this time and the importance of his Walter Burns in the final act, probably amounts to a leading role. As a newspaper tycoon he represents the film's harshest depiction of the ruthless world of journalism, manipulating the unfolding drama over a murder suspect with political and financial motivation. He does this with all the dignity of an orchestral conductor, cooly cutting people dead with one-liners and approaching the sheriff and all who challenge him as if they were barely worthy of his time. Menjou is largely successful at responding to the energy of the film's true leading man, Pat O'Brien, and thoughtfully underplays his character's crafty processing and frequent dismay with furrowed brows and pursed lips. A criticism is that he is perhaps a little too reserved, and certainly appears to be less attuned to this satirical brand of comedy than many of the other cast members, but no matter, his performance is a sly, shrewd, knowing one that crucially ensures that we never doubt who's truly running the show.

** Richard Dix in Cimarron (1931)

Richard Dix probably felt like the cat that got the cream when he landed the lead role in Best Picture-winner Cimarron, but retrospectively the task of wrestling with this turgid, muddled script is a thankless one. Dix charges Cimarron through a fairly promising first half at the core of a culture we're beginning to understand, and while the film feels as if its moving towards something his curiously-named Yancey Cravat is the self-righteous hero that descendants like Giant managed to muster up. A rousing speech at a church meeting shows what Dix is capable of, clawing at the town's hooligans and effectively hanging them out to dry with an almost arrogant lack of fear. Ironically this display of leadership is Cimarron's final feat, promptly consigning Dix to a five-year period of solitude which is over in the blink of an eye. His return to the town only serves to confuse matters though, and it really is downhill from there for all concerned. I couldn't tell you anything more about his character from then onwards: a fault for which Dix really can't be blamed.

** Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul (1931)

The raucous mannerisms that serve Lionel Barrymore are manifested into drunken flailing and desperate pleas in A Free Soul, a film that is a bit like an accident waiting to happen. Asking Norma Shearer to act modestly is a questionable move in itself, and only contributes to the guffaw when AFS turns into a theatrical courtroom face/off at the close and sees the two stars compete for just who can shout the loudest and swoosh the most dramatically. Prior to the film's needless escalation into cheap melodrama it had been a competent family drama (allbeit low on actual themes) in which Barrymore's alcoholic lawyer isn't mind-blowing, but manages to get across the man's passion for family, work, and alcohol. When that idea is knocked on its head the mayhem ensues and we're into histrionics the likes of which even Liz Taylor and Richard Burton never reached. The essence of their courtroom exchange is down to the poor script but both Shearer and Barrymore's treatment of it is ACTING 101, and all but kills any sense of poignancy left in A Free Soul.

Nominees Unseen:

Fredric March in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)

Men of the Thirties Month: Commencement

And so it begins.

I've been racing through the Academy Awards' first embracees with the lightning fury of a bushfire in Skippy and with the determined desire for escape of Victor McLaglen in The Informer. But before I launch into annual rundowns of each respective year, I just wanna make one small point about George Arliss, and his fellow nominees in the 1929-30 awards. Although technically these awards consider films in the first half of 1930, Disraeli was released in 1929, and so I don't count his win as a thirties victory -- if you get me. Therefore I'll be starting with the 1930-31 line-up.

Here are the nomination totals for the Actors of the Thirties (* denotes win) :-

4 Nominations (and leader of the pack)

Paul Muni*

3 Nominations

Clark Gable*
Fredric March*
Spencer Tracy**

2 Nominations

Charles Boyer
Robert Donat*
Leslie Howard
Charles Laughton*
William Powell

1 Nomination

Lionel Barrymore*
Wallace Beery*
James Cagney
Gary Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Richard Dix
Walter Huston
Alfred Lunt
Adolphe Menjou
Robert Montgomery
Frank Morgan
Victor McLaglen*
Laurence Olivier
Mickey Rooney
James Stewart
Franchot Tone

Extra Stats and Trivia

The average age of the Leading Actor winner is just under 40 years old.

Youngest - Gable (34 years and 26 Days)
Oldest - Barrymore (52 years and 196 days)

Only two of the Leading Actor winners (Laughton as Henry VIII and Muni as Louis Pasteur) are starring in actual biopics -- so we can't blame the current obsession on Academy Award founders. Having said that, five of the other eight winners are literary characters. Originality didn't exactly reap reward in this period either.

*SPOILER ALERT*
Seven of the ten winners have death scenes.

Paul Muni's nomination for Black Fury in 1935 was a write-in, like Bette Davis' Of Human Bondage turn the year before. Both were revealed as second-place finishers to Victor McLaglen and Claudette Colbert respectively. The 'write-in' nomination was eventually abolished though, and the rules subsequently changed to ensure that the Academy would get it right the first time around. Whether they did or not is a matter of opinion.

The correlation between the Picture and Actor categories is nothing new: of the ten winners, only Lionel Barrymore and Fredric March were not in a Best Picture nominee. However, Clark Gable is the only winner to see his film win the big prize. He's also the only winner to see a co-star get an Oscar.

Of the 25 men nominated for Leading Actor in the 1930's, five went on to win the award in later decades (Cagney, Cooper, March, Olivier, Stewart) although Walter Huston did win for Supporting in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Fredric March is the only Actor to win in both the thirties and forties.

None of the ten Actor winners won the New York Film Critics Circle award, the then biggest precursor for the Oscar. And only one of the guys managed to get noticed elsewhere for their performance, although I'd certainly question Paul Muni's 1936 Volpi Cup from Venice.

Upcoming: 1930-31 Profile

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.

Hottest Track: Rihanna - Whippin' My Hair

Murder, He Thinks

Bad Day At Black Rock

Directed by John Sturges

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Dean Jagger, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Walter Brennan

Grade: C

Bad Day At Black Rock is one of those films with a stiff upper lip. Its stolid structure is of the assured ilk that often meant success for the old, simple, effective melodrama, beginning and ending with a train passing through a town; a town embelished in apparent dark secrets and entombed mystery. The film surely pimps this mystery: a tale of a Japanese farmer in an isolated Western American town, who disappeared shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The maths are rational, and for all of the proposed enigma Black Rock rashly and bravely lays pretty much everything on the line. Spencer Tracy's investigative, disabled stranger (he is only capable of using one of his arms) saunters into the town of Black Rock like only Spencer Tracy can, stubbornly aware and remarkably resilient, and the reaction of the townsfolk to his entrance solidifies the vague presumption: Black Rock is a guilty place.

Tracy's attempts to coax the less narrow-minded members of the town to his way of thinking is rather like the task of Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, with justice the ultimate goal. But while the courthouse drama dealt with appearance, logic, and politics, Black Rock feels more like a bad episode of Murder, She Wrote, with Spencer as the infallible Jessica Fletcher (or should that be the other way around?), sleuthing and smoothing his way through a murder investigation as if he'd lost a pair of slippers. All the more surprising then when he is roped into a fistfight with Ernest Borgnine, one-handed, and proceeds to make Uma Thurman in Kill Bill look wimpish.

Once Black Rock eradicates the mystery by making it plainly obvious what has happened, it turns into the kind of factional warfare that really requires more emotional penetration. Small-town politics are addressed through the bullying and intimidation of horribly standard villains; racism present but rarely explored beyond fleeting references to World War II. You can see how the town dynamic may have become so volatile, and you can even see the eery backstory of its demise, but the polarisation of morality that dominates Black Rock's final act is disappointing. The emphasis of brains-over-brawn and good-over-evil makes a routine operation out of what should be raw and powerful, fatefully absent of the scathing clash of beliefs that thickened 12 Angry Men. It could do with a bit of the sweat, too.

Eurovision: 3 Days to Go

The 2009 Eurovision Song Contest is just three days away now (excited, aren't you?) and last night the first semi-final took place to a thunderous atmosphere. I always think this semi-final system makes the Eurovision seem a bit of an arduous process, since I found the one-off/'what on earth are you going to get?' element very appealing. I've already got the Bacardi and mint for the mojito's on Saturday. Eurovision is a serious business, you know.

The Qualifying Countries from Semi-Final 1

Turkey
Sweden
Israel
Portugal
Malta
Finland
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Romania
Armenia
Iceland

As you would have expected there's a decent balkan contingent in there. I hope this new jury system compensates somewhat but something tells me there's gonna be a lot of confusion come Saturday when they try to explain it. Tonight's line-up sees the first test for Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" (the huge 13/8 favourite from Norway) as well as that weird "Firefly" song I embedded a few weeks ago.

Bon Soir!

Hottest Track: Camera Obscura - French Navy

Personal Canon: 89. The American Friend (1977)

Directed by Wim Wenders

Starring: Bruno Ganz, Dennis Hopper, Lisa Kreuzer, Gerard Blain

A discussion of Wim Wender's The American Friend in a Film Studies seminar a couple of years ago instigated a bit of an argument. My suggestion of a gay subtext in the film went down like a lead balloon, to which I responded defensively -- as anyone would. All I know is that my gaydar was going like the clappers all the way through The American Friend, which is adapted from one of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley novels. Ripley has a pretty ambiguous sexuality himself -- even if Highsmith has publicly denied that he's gay she more than hints that he's a dabbler.

Regardless, The American Friend feels oddly weighty and harsh in its derelict urban setting, and Wenders' direction often accentuates the grime of workshops and bedrooms through heavy tinting and intent close-ups. It's all so sparse: the broken community of the film's modest amount of characters and settings alluding to the disarray of international relations, culture clashes, and the pummelled identity of a people lost to fascism. Bruno Ganz's illness-stricken German picture-framer forms a friendship with a dealer of forged art (Dennis Hopper as the aforementioned Ripley), who in turn mentions to gangland friends that the German would make a good hitman.

Jonathan Lynn's hilarious biting satire Clue offers up a mini-revelation in the form of the line, "Why should the police come? Nobody's called them.". The power of suggestion similarly takes hold in The American Friend, and the willingness of woodworker Jonathan to accept such suggestion is rather like the assuming role of Germany in the Hitler years. This suggestion is also embodied by the bravely-alienating flirtation between Jonathan and Ripley, who don't quite reach the prick-teasing efforts of Jude Law and Michael Caine in the recent Sleuth, but certainly more than hint that they're pining for one another. Since The American Friend bears a lot of the hallmarks of 70's crime drama's like The French Connection, its remarkable that it has time to fully integrate the sexual endeavours and rich politics: a potent mix.

So I Finally Handed My Dissertation in...

A weight has been lifted.

I still have work to do in the next month but I should now be free to actually have a social life. Expect more posts. The main thing that is happening in my life right now though doesn't really have much to do with films or Uni, and could end up making me totally anti-social....

Tomorrow.
*bubbles uncontrollably*

Hottest Track: Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)

The Hard Way (1943)

Directed by Vincent Sherman

Starring: Ida Lupino, Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson

Grade: B+

Rosalind Russell's pushy mother in Gypsy is perhaps the most abundant example of a parent wanting too much for her child. The Hard Way's Helen Chernen isn't a mother (at least not biologically-speaking) but treats the future of her teenage sister with a similarly half-maternal/ half-tyrannical fervour, making it top of her list of priorities and gamely shoving youngster Katie into the big bad world of showbusiness. Ida Lupino is this driven woman, and suitably conveys the exasperation of a thirty-something home-maker who can't really afford to give her sister the life that she wants. A high school photograph puts things into perspective: clad in grey drab and amidst a sea of girls in gleaming white dresses, Katie is a scruff, an ugly duckling, someone destined to end up enslaved in the same kind of monotonous marriage her sister is currently enduring. One of the few problems with the film is that it doesn't do enough in its early stages to back this idea up, and introduces a half-heartedly needless flashback framework that would return to detract from Joan Crawford's Possessed four years later.

Still, The Hard Way can't really be criticised for being this flimsy with the rest of its structure, since its 110-minute running time goes by in a breeze. It doesn't have the musical stop-gap's of Gypsy, nor the overbearing overtness of its themes on show, and while it's in danger of being bland on occasion The Hard Way does emerge as a more sly and knowing counterpart to LeRoy's film. Part of this is achieved through Lupino, who grabbed the New York Film Critics' Best Actress prize for this, giving an enigmatic performance; shrewd, unwaivering, solid, manipulative without any Joan Collins in Dynasty-style showcasing. Lupino leads her film while often in the background as the mousy manager to the charming Katie (Joan Leslie), and like a limpet at her side becomes frustrating in her coy assurance that her actions are all for the kid's well-being.

This stuff isn't ground-breaking, and you get the impression that The Hard Way has not aged well. It has a lot of style and tight characterisation but the waves of melodrama are anchored by plot devices that have been done to death since, and probably before, Vincent Sherman's film was released in 1943. Love triangles, forlorn husbands, and career betrayal all give The Hard Way that 'seen it, done it, got the t-shirt' feel, but if a thing's done well, how can you knock it? The film achieves more than most in that it convincingly travels years, dredging up characters more than once and alluding to just enough social environment without compromising the true compact melodrama of the piece.

She'll Fuck You Up

Yoohoo!

I haven't posted for weeks because I'm currently very occupied with my Uni dissertation, which is about Screwball comedies if you're interested. All my focus is going into that at the moment. Still, I was procrastinating a little bit earlier, and stumbled upon something rather exciting.

I don't know how many of you remember the 2001 song 'Paradise' by a beautiful American teen girl called Kaci. Well I loved it at the time and revisited the other week. Such a good pop song! But anyway, you'd be forgiven for thinking this girl had faded into obscurity. No! She has a song coming out in America and apparently it's all over the radio there. It's called Crazy Obsessive and is crazy catchy, so I'm gonna share it with you.

A bit of a change of image, huh? From pure to pissed off. You may as well call this a hottest track.... although I could fill the next couple of month's tracks with the upcoming Passion Pit album. Serious pwnage.

Hottest Track: Patrick Wolf - Vulture

Top Ten Film Characters

I was tagged for this meme by Dave of Victim of the Time (thankyouuuuu!).

When I thought about what my ten favourite film characters ever might be, I was bieseged by many of Bette Davis' creations, and a couple of Maggie Smith's. It was hard to narrow the whole thing down, and it turns out that Bette and Maggie don't actually feature here. I still don't think this really represents a concrete, researched list, but I love these ten characters immeasurably. Here they are:-

Kat Stratford in Ten Things I Hate About You

I'm not sure that Julia Stiles' Kat Stratford is exactly the kind of shrew that William Shakespeare originally envisioned, but I'd like to think that, if alive today (wouldn't that be cause for concern?) he'd marvel at the representation of his wild female in the modern-day adaptation, 10 Things I Hate About You. I have passionate feelings for this film (see its entry in my personal canon for further proof), and it's largely because of the uber-bitch activity of Ms. Stratford, who exercises quips you really wish you'd written yourself. Someone that strives to be different and distinctly anti-social, Kat's idea of a compliment is "You're not as vile as I thought you were", and despite engaging in romance for much of the film, never loses her edge or bite.

Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins

The world's greatest nanny fulfils her promise to leave town when the wind changes, and we'd expect nothing less of a woman that is so assured, affronted, and "practically perfect in every way". This never waivers and yet her feelings for the children are always present and strong, which is probably down to Julie Andrew's fantastic performance. Poppins achieves stability through madness, the secret pleasure she exudes from lucid imagination and trifle outings remaining the most far-away, untouchable element of the woman, and perhaps the most valuable.

Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada

"This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff."

And the words on the page do not even do this speech justice.

Mr. Grey in Secretary

I'll leave my sexual habits out of this but, needless to say, James Spader completely got me going here. I also love that you never know Mr. Grey's first name, since it shouldn't be, and isn't important. Grey meets his match in Gyllenhaal's ultimate submissive, and promptly begins to up his game. He grows more and more clinical and downright horny as their relationship escalates, and it's hella fun to watch him call the shots.

Sally Bowles in Cabaret

There aren't many characters that feel as genuine as Sally Bowles. Life is a cabaret for her, after all, and so the willingness to be free overcomes the moments in life which could surely get her down. I'm nowhere near as brave as Sally, but I can totally relate to her attitude towards life. Retrospectively, my viewing of Cabaret kind of represented a kick in the head, a remonstration of "What are you doing? Why aren't you going out and getting sloshed? Why aren't you having sex?" etc. etc. etc. There are no drunks or whores where Sally's concerned, and why should there be? It's all human nature.

Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind

I could talk about Scarlett O'Hara all of the day, and all of the night (cue Billie Piper) as her permanent facade is maybe the most enchanting characterisation that's ever graced the silver screen. She's jealous, elitist, devious, calculating, breathtakingly charming, admirable for seizing opportunities at the drop of a hat, and yet kind of pathetic in her narrowness and unable or unwilling to grasp how her actions might affect those around her. There's a stunning audacity to Scarlett that's both her outlet for success and the reason for her inevitable downfall. "I'll think about that tomorrow"... A-MA-ZING.

Scrat in the Ice Age Series

Oh come on! Don't tell me you haven't laughed at those snippets in the Ice Age pics (one of the few reasons to see these films), and marvelled at how predictably relentless and devoted this little creature is. Nobody's ever loved an acorn that much.

Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby

Q: Would a man really fall in love with a girl who ransacked his wedding, lumbered him with a leopard, and single-handedly dismantled his relationship?

A: He would if it was Katharine Hepburn. Susan Vance is one of the wildest women you're ever likely to observe, and goes from catastrophe to catastrophe so matter-of-factly, with barely a pang of real consideration, and with such a wonderful spirit of adventure, that you'd go through anything with this woman.

Tracy Flick in Election

"Pick Flick" is the slogan of choice for Election's resident smartster; a ploy that demonstrates her insane ambition and hints that she's used to getting exactly what she wants. Flick is driven by this ambition, consumed by it, blinded by it, and the parodical nature of her success-hungry teen achieves a nifty social observation. Something ruthless bubbles beneath the desire to succeed.

Wadsworth in Clue

As the orchestrator of events, Tim Curry's Wadsworth is required to dash around explaining things for long periods of this brilliant comedy. Wadsworth repeats himself often but makes each instance a little different and equally hilarious. Murder mysteries don't have someone to lay things on the line, otherwise they wouldn't really be mysterious, would they? So it's great that Clue's kinda anti-convention works both as a mystery and a satire, and that the frantic nature of Wadsworth's drive and motivation in the film acts as suspense-building, tireless excitement.

Time to tag: RJ, Keith, Shep, Alex, and Yaseen, do your worst.

Actress Profiles: Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Despite receiving five Golden Globe Nominations (MP) and three BAFTA notices, Mia Farrow has never been nominated at the Oscars. Puzzlingly, none of those nominated performances include her brilliant turn in Death on the Nile, where she plays the drunken, jealous ex of a British tourist. Her presence in Rosemary's Baby, however, is probably the closest she came to a date with the Golden Guy crew, given that the film managed a Screenplay nomination, and a Supporting win for Ruth Gordon, as well as the fact she's in nearly every scene.

Farrow's role is, quite obviously, not a stock one, as the initially enthusiastic and eager-to-settle Rosemary eventually becomes a wailing beacon of paranoia. As with most horror films, the establishment of equilibrium wants us to see Rosemary as a familiar, fawn-like heroine, walking blindly into a hunter's trap. It works: Farrow, as ever a warm and easy presence on-screen, gives us the foothold of honesty that we need, but she also lets us see the pretense in her attempts at home-making, the inherent motivation of the woman to dismiss or distract from the insecurities of her relationship with Guy (Cassavetes). As a character, Farrow makes Rosemary, timid in demeanor but clear in focus, feel above and beyond her malleable surroundings; immersed, impelled, thoroughly self-alienating, and an awfully easy target.

In many ways, Rosemary's fate is an inevitable one. Lord knows, there's defiance and fight in this woman, but the apparent victory of her conception blinds her from realising (at least for a while) that she does not have everything her own way. She even endures pain for months on end, believing that it's down to purely natural behaviour. But as the penny starts to drop, and Rosemary is forced to exercise her suppressed challenge and independence, is where Farrow unquestionably excels.

The success of Polanski's film most lies in its nonchalance; the denial, the unspoken. Its mellow tone simmers and starts, but rarely goes into overload, and keeps the overt drama to a bare minimum. The idea of satanism and witchcraft is something Rosemary would surely have balked at at one time or another, but believably forms the underlying basis of her newfound drive and purpose, as much of a way to free herself of the restrictions of pregnancy than to find hidden truths. Farrow masters the confluence of comedy, perplexion, investigation, and fear, whacking up the intensity but sticking with the character's narrow perceptions, and embedding her descent into fully-fledged realisation with the scorn of an exploited woman. One gets the impression that she feels as bloodthirsty as she does wronged, and the final scene handily leaves you exactly that to ponder.

Hottest Track: Muchuu - Their World