Howard
Hawks’ biopic of American war hero Alvin C. York, Sergeant York, was the
highest grossing film of 1941. It received many accolades, including a Best
Actor Oscar for star Gary Cooper and a trophy for Film Editing. It was also nominated
for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (John Huston was one of four
writers involved), Supporting Actor (Walter Brennan), Supporting Actress (Margaret
Wycherly), Cinematography, Art Direction, Music Score (by Max Steiner), and
Sound Recording. The film was released in the summer of ’41 and did very well
at the box office. By the time it was playing in rural America later in the
year, though, the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred. The mobilization to
prepare for war helped give Sergeant York a second wave of financial
success and it continued to play on U.S. screens into 1942.
“Biopicâ€
may be too broad of a description of the movie because it covers only two years
of York’s life. The year is 1916 and York is already a grown man. York (Cooper)
lives in an extremely rural area of Tennessee, near the Kentucky border (one of
the bars he frequents with his best friends, played by Ward Bond and Noah
Beery, Jr., is divided by the state line on the floor—and Tennessee residents
must go to the Kentucky side of the place to purchase their liquor, and then
walk back across the room to the Tennessee side to sit and drink it). York is an
uneducated farmer (he can read, but an entire book is daunting for him) and
poor. He lives with his wise but stern mother (Wycherly) and two younger
siblings (the sister is played by a teen June Lockhart). The town—such as it
is—has an unofficial patriarch in the form of the pastor and general store
proprietor, Rosier Pile (Brennan). York is sweet on Gracie (Joan Leslie), and
she has reciprocal feelings for him, but he worries that he has no land of his
own or anything else he can offer.
One
stormy night, York is on his way on horseback to perhaps kill a man whom he
feels stole a land purchase from him. York is struck by lightning and he
survives. He suddenly finds religion after the incident. This dovetails with
America’s entering World War I, and York is drafted. He enters the army but
insists that he is a conscientious objector. The last act of the film becomes
an engaging war movie in Europe, and it depicts how York overcomes his
objection to perform a significant heroic act that solidifies his place in
American history.
While
Sergeant York is perhaps a little lengthy at 134 minutes, under the
direction of Howard Hawks it moves from one entertaining set piece to the next.
The characterizations are expertly rendered by the entire cast. Brennan is
always good during this period of his career (he won three Supporting Actor
Oscars between 1936 and 1940), and George Tobias, as a fellow soldier from New
York who teaches York about “subways,†is also winning. The movie, however,
belongs to Cooper, who displays charm, humility, and integrity throughout the
picture.
(Note from the Warner Archive: Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging (MPI) presents a "Before & After" video comparing the previous master of Sergeant York (1941) with our brand-new master featured on our new Warner Archive Blu-ray.)
Warner
Archive’s Blu-ray is a port-over from Warner’s original DVD release. The
restored transfer is gorgeous and clean, and it comes with an audio commentary by film
historian Jeanine Basinger. Supplements include a “night at the moviesâ€
selection of shorts (a semi-comic documentary called Lions for Sale, and
a Porky Pig cartoon). Of special interest is the 38-minute making-of
featurette, Sergeant York: Of God and Country.
For
fans of Sergeant York, Gary Cooper, Howard Hawks, or depictions of Americana,
the new Warner Archive edition of the picture is worth the upgrade.
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With
the publication of Jeremy Arnold’s new lavishly illustrated and intelligently
written TCM (Turner Classic Movies) coffee-table paperback, The Essentials,
Volume 2: 52 More Must-See Movies and Why They Matter, I find myself going
back to my review of the original Volume 1 of The Essentials and am
tempted to repeat much of what was said there.
“The
Essentials†is a weekly Saturday night event on TCM in which a guest host
introduces a picture he or she believes is an Essential, i.e., a title “film
lovers need to know,†as film historian Ben Mankiewicz explains in the forward.
The number 52 is used because there are 52 weeks in a year. Unlike in Volume
One, the new book contains an Appendix listing all the Essentials that
TCM has aired, indicating the ones chosen for both Volumes 1 and 2 (and there
are still plenty left over, leaving open the possibility of a Volume 3 and 4!).
It must be stated that TCM’s choice of movies depend entirely on what is
available to the network to broadcast. For example, The Godfather,
surely an “Essential,†is not on the list because TCM has never had the rights
to show it. The Wizard of Oz is not there, either. Therefore, TCM’s list
of Essentials, while containing all fabulous, important, and indeed must-see
titles, does unfortunately omit some obvious pictures, albeit through no
fault of their own.
That
said, the new Volume 2 handsomely complements Volume 1 design-wise and sits
neatly on the shelf beside its older brother. Author Jeremy Arnold does a
superb job presenting the reasons why a particular film matters and provides
interesting sidebar trivia for each entry. The book is gorgeously illustrated
with many stills, both color and black-and-white.
The
new tome includes such classics as Sunrise, Freaks, Top Hat,
Stagecoach, Sullivan’s Travels, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Notorious,
Rashomon, High Noon, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The
Apartment, Psycho, The Producers, Hannah and Her Sisters,
and I was particularly pleased to see 2001: A Space Odyssey (an omission
I noted from Volume 1!).
It
is always too easy when judging a book of “bests†to complain about what’s
missing. That won’t happen here except to say that it’s unfortunate that TCM
does not incorporate more foreign-language titles that are indeed must-see
“essentialsâ€â€”for example, there’s not a single film by Ingmar Bergman, Federico
Fellini, or Francois Truffaut on the full list. While there are a few, such as
Godard’s Breathless (included in Volume 1) and Ray’s Pather Panchali
(here in Volume 2), so many are missing. One must conclude that this is because
TCM concentrates more on purely American/Hollywood fare.
But
this is quibbling. All told, like Volume 1 before it, The Essentials Volume
2 is another good starting point “bucket list†of must-see movies, especially
for younger aficionados who might want to get a jump start on their film
history class.
In
1943, Hollywood churned out dozens of war films in support of the U.S.
involvement in the global conflict raging at the time. Many were cheaply made
rush jobs, others were good “B†pictures, and a select group were “A†level, excellent
pieces of celluloid that are now classics. All were essentially propaganda
pictures made to lift the spirits of the American people and the troops who
were able to see them. Rah Rah, Let’s Go Get ‘Em!
Billy
Wilder, an Austrian Jew who had fled Germany as the Nazis gained power, settled
in Hollywood in 1933 after a brief stint in France. He immediately found work
as a talented screenwriter, ultimately earning his first Oscar nomination for
co-writing Ninotchka (1939). As war heated up in the 1940s, Wilder then
became, after the likes of Preston Sturges, a rare Hollywood double threat—a
writer/director. Five Graves to Cairo is only his second picture as a
director, and it’s one of those propaganda war films that could be classified
as an “A†classic.
In
the flavor of Casablanca, Five Graves is also a spy movie in a
way. The plot involves British tank corporal John Bramble (Franchot Tone), who,
after his crew is wiped out in the North African desert, makes his way to Sidi
Halfaya in a delirium. He stumbles into a hotel, the “Empress of Britain,†run
by an Egyptian, Farid (Akim Tamiroff). Also present in the desolated hotel is
the French maid, Mouche (Anne Baxter). The Germans, led by Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel (Erich von Stroheim, of course) are on their way to town, and they’ll be
staying at the hotel. The British had recently been run out of town and are
regrouping at El Alamein. Lieutenant Schwegler (Peter van Eyck) arrives with
men ahead of Rommel to fix up security and make arrangements for his commanding
officer. In a pinch, Bramble must impersonate the dead “waiter,†of the hotel,
a man called Davos. It turns out that Davos, who had a peg leg, was a German
spy who had made regular reports on British movements before he was killed.
This gives Bramble the opportunity to play double agent and ferret out Rommel’s
secret of hidden supply dumps in Egypt known as the “five graves to Cairo.†Throw
in a love/hate conflict between Bramble and Mouche, and you’ve got the makings
of a terrific war thriller.
Five
Graves to Cairo is
well-made, tightly written (by Wilder, with longtime scribe partner Charles
Brackett), and superbly acted. Tone, while not being an A-level star per se,
carries the movie well. Baxter, speaking with a European accent that isn’t quite
French, is suitable enough and certainly exudes screen chemistry. Erich von
Stroheim almost steals the picture as Rommel, doing his typical German officer
routine we’ve seen before; he makes a terrific heavy for the tale. Tamiroff’s
purpose is primarily comic relief, and he always fulfills that duty with skill.
Kino
Lorber’s impressive high definition restoration looks sharp and clear. It comes
with an audio commentary by film historian Joseph McBride, as well as the
theatrical trailer for this and other Billy Wilder releases by Kino.
Five
Graves to Cairo is
a time capsule of its day, a potent look at a filmmaker early in his
extraordinary career, and a marvelous entertainment.
Here
we go again! Another entry in the “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the
Exploitation Picture†series, this time it’s Volume 7. Presented by Kino Lorber
in association with Something Weird Video, we have for your shocking pleasure
the double-bill of Test Tube Babies (1948) and Guilty Parents (1934),
and what a hoot these pictures are.
There
have always been what have been termed in the motion picture industry
“exploitation films,†even back in the silent days. The late 1930s and much of
the 1940s, however, saw a deluge of cheap, not-even-“B†pictures made, usually
independently of Hollywood and marketed in guerilla fashion as “educationalâ€
adult fare. You know the type. Reefer Madness. Child Bride. Mom
and Dad.
Kino
Lorber and Something Weird have been doing a bang-up job on releasing a series
of some of the best (i.e., infamous) of these jaw-dropping pieces of celluloid.
One wonders how the movies ever got distributed. They’re so bad that they’re
hilariously entertaining, and they especially elicit eye-rolling because they
often portend to be “instructive†in nature.
Test
Tube Babies was
produced by the notorious George Weiss, who was responsible for many
exploitation pictures of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, including Ed Wood’s Glen or
Glenda. Featuring a slate of no-name actors in an amateurishly put-together
film (it feels like a student project), the movie ironically has a sound
message behind all the sensationalism. Artificial insemination was just
becoming a “thing†in the late 1940s, and the movie attempts to convince an
audience that, if the male partner of a marital union is sterile, then it’s
perfectly acceptable for the wife to undergo artificial insemination by a sperm
donor. Cathy and George (Dorothy Duke and William Thomason) are an attractive
newlywed couple who want to start a family. When, after a year, Cathy is unable
to become pregnant, a doctor (played by Weiss film stalwart Timothy Farrell,
usually always in the role of a physician) tests George and delivers the bad
news. He then proceeds to sell the couple on raising a “test tube baby.†The
exploitation aspect of the movie is the lead-up to all this, as the couple
experiments with swinger parties among their friends. Thus, much of the movie
consists of tawdry softcore skin flashes, frank talk, and even a girl-fight on
the floor of a living room. It’s all designed to titillate. Naturally, Test
Tube Babies would never have passed the Production Code’s guidelines, and it
was thus released independently for adults only.
Guilty
Parents
is surprisingly the better film, albeit much more primitive in production
values. Jean Lacy plays innocent Helen Mason, whose mother (Isabel La Mal) is
frighteningly puritanical and protective of her daughter, refusing to teach
Helen any of the rudiments of the facts of life. Of course, Helen meets a young
man who corrupts her, and the couple commits a robbery. The boyfriend dies from
a gunshot wound, so Helen goes on the run, changes her name, and falls deeper
into a hole of depravity and prostitution. She eventually kills the pimp who is
exploiting her, and she goes to trial. Her defense attorney makes the argument
that it’s all her mother’s fault—that she’s the guilty one—for not
educating Helen in the ways of the world. Oh, and there’s a surprise ending.
Also known as Hitch Hike to Hell, the pre-Code Guilty Parents features
a silhouetted nude sequence and a lot of scantily-clad ladies, gangster-type
men, and material that would never pass the Hays Office once the Code kicked in
later in 1934. Sure, it’s a terrible movie, really, but it’s entertaining in
its time capsule, exploitative way, and Jean Lacy is actually quite winning in
the lead role.
The
high definition restorations look as well as they can, considering the
sources—certainly better than the cheap public domain DVDs and VHS copies of
these films from yesteryear. Supplements include an audio commentary on Test
Tube Babies by Eric Schaefer, author of Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A
History of Exploitation Films; a 1951 “marital education†short, Sex and
Romance; an alternate title sequence for Guilty Parents (with the Hitch
Hike to Hell title); and a collection of other exploitation film trailers.
For
cinephiles interested in this wacky genre of so-bad-it’s-good Forbidden Fruit,
the double bill of Test Tube Babies and Guilty Parents will,
oddly, scandalize you and make you laugh at the same time.
“DANGER,
DARKNESS, AND DAMES IN HIGH DEFINTIONâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Ding
ding ding! Attention all lovers of film noir! The Warner Archive has released
an outstanding 4-film Blu-ray collection of some of the best titles in
this cinematic movement that ran from (approximately) 1941 to 1958. While
author James Ellroy states in the included supplemental documentary, Film
Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light, that noir began in “1945,†this is
obviously incorrect. It would leave out such classics as one of the titles in
the collection (Murder, My Sweet), as well as Double Indemnity
and Laura. Film noir is generally accepted by most film scholars as
beginning in 1941 with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon.
Much
debate and discussion proliferate among film historians and scholars about what
film noir is. Foremost, it is NOT a genre! It is mostly a style,
along with thematic elements that define a group of American motion pictures
that were made throughout the 1940s and 50s that share these qualities. They
are most always crime movies, although there are some instances of other
genres—westerns, science fiction, horror—that were made in a style associated
with film noir.
Generally,
these crime pictures are in black and white, shot in a style akin to German
Expressionism (highly contrasting dark and light, with lots of shadows); are
usually told from the point of view of the criminals; feature cynical,
hard-boiled protagonists; include the presence of a femme fatale (a bad
woman who causes the downfall of “good†man); and are shot in urban locations,
among them seedy bars, shabby motels and hotels, alleys, and streets. There may
be many scenes at night and/or in the rain. Characters smoke and drink as if their
lives depend on it. There are betrayals and double-crosses, and a heavy focus
on past events (lots of flashbacks). Voiceover narration is a common attribute.
Because the plots often deal with taboo subjects (according to the Production
Code), the filmmakers had to be clever with the dialogue—thus, the movies
contain witty, crisp dialogue with innuendoes and quotable one-liners. A “pureâ€
film noir has no happy ending. There is more, but you get the idea.
The
Warner Archive’s new collection combines four titles that are also available
separately. In chronological order (according to when they were originally
released), these gems are in the package.
Murder,
My Sweet
(1944) is based on Raymond Chandler’s 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely
and is the first appearance of the Philip Marlowe character. Here, though, he’s
not portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, but is embodied by Dick Powell. This casting
was controversial at the time because Powell was known mostly as a
singer/dancer in musicals. Powell surprised everyone with his tough, sardonic
performance. He’s terrific and certainly gives Bogart a run for his money in
the part. The plot is confusing and all over the place, which is typical of
most of the films adapted from Chandler, but it’s still entertaining to boot.
Claire Trevor is the femme fatale of the piece and delivers a fine, heightened
characterization. It’s violent (for the era), tough, and hard-boiled. It’s a
worthy example of film noir. The high definition transfer is gorgeous with its
natural grain appearance—assuredly a step up from Warner’s original DVD
release. There are no supplements on the disk aside from an audio commentary by
author and film noir expert Alain Silver. Oddly, there is no mention of
Silver’s name on the packaging or the disk menu!
Out
of the Past (1947)
is easily one of the better film noir entries and is often cited as a favorite
among aficionados. Based on the novel Raise My Gallows High by Daniel
Mainwaring, the picture features Robert Mitchum as a man who is haunted by his
past, of course, and beautiful femme fatale Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas
(as the villain!) are instruments of his affliction. Beautifully shot by
Nicholas Musaraca, and moodily directed by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People),
Past also has a complex plot, but it is much easier to follow than the
previous title’s tale. It’s a landmark picture that probably could be dropped
in a bucket containing the “five most important films noir.†The high
definition transfer is breathtakingly good. Again, there are no supplements
except for an audio commentary, this time by author and film noir authority
James Ursini. Yet again, the Warner Archive dropped the ball and does not list
Ursini’s name on the packaging or on the Blu-ray disk menu.
The
Set-Up (1949)
is directed by the versatile Robert Wise, who was a master craftsman in every
genre. Another milestone in the film noir catalog, the movie is based on a poem
by Joseph M. March. It stars Robert Ryan as Stoker, a washed-up boxer who is
hoping to win big in one last fight. His wife, played by Audrey Totter, has
wanted him to give it up for a long time. However, the boxer’s crooked manager
has arranged a “dive†with the mob without Stoker knowing it. Surprising the
manager and the mob, Stoker gives the fight his all. To reveal more would be a
spoiler. Hard-hitting and cynical as hell, The Set-Up apparently was a
big influence on Scorsese’s Raging Bull; in fact, Scorsese himself
appears as an audio commentator on the disk along with director Wise! This audio
commentary is the only supplement, but at least this time both Scorsese and
Wise are listed on the packaging and on the disk menu.
Gun
Crazy (1950)
is based on a short story by MacKinlay Kantor, who co-wrote the screenplay with
none other than master movie scribe Dalton Trumbo, who, because of being
blacklisted at the time, was forced to use a pseudonym in the credits. It’s a
picture in the film noir sub-genre known as “lovers on the run.†Peggy Cummins
and John Dall star as Annie and Bart, gun enthusiasts who begin to commit armed
robberies. Their affection for each other drives the movie, and in many ways Gun
Crazy could also be called a great romance picture. For a low-budget
effort, though, Crazy is also one of the essential films noir—well-written,
acted, and directed. The audio commentary here is by author and film noir
historian Glenn Erickson. An additional supplement on the disk is the
previously mentioned 2006 documentary, Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light,
which features many talking heads and film clips. It’s quite good. Erickson’s
name doesn’t appear on the packaging, but this time his name is on the Blu-ray
disk menu.
The
Warner Archive has done a slam-bang job on the presentation of these four
upgrades to Blu-ray from their original DVD releases. The transfers are
fantastic and the movies themselves belong in any cinephile’s collection. Aside
from the oversights of leaving off documentation of the first two audio
commentators’ names, this is a superb package… and buying the collection is less
expensive than buying the four titles in their separate Blu-ray editions.
Highly recommended.
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