1939 - Of Mice and Men

It's the Labor Day weekend here in the United States and last night, my darling wife Kat and I attended a party with some friends. To make a long story short, I got a little intoxicated. Don't panic, I didn't embarrass myself (at least, I don't think I did) but I did suffer from some crazy dreams last night, no doubt induced by that hazy dehydration the human brain experiences when its owner has consumed too much alcohol and not enough water. I don't remember the details exactly, but I'm sure it had something to do with the films of 1939. A sign that I'm too obsessed with this project? No, probably just a sign that I shouldn't drink so much.

Yesterday, before the imbibing began, I reached the halfway point of the 1939 Best Picture competition when I watched...

Of Mice and Men

Director:

Lewis Milestone

Screenplay:

Eugene Solow

(based on the novel by John Steinbeck)

Starring:

Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Lon Chaney, Jr., Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen, Bob Steele

Academy Awards:

4 nominations

0 wins

Adapted from the classic John Steinbeck novella, Of Mice and Men follows two freelance ranch workers, George and Lennie, as they begin work on a ranch near Soledad, California, during the Great Depression. Lennie is intellectually challenged and George takes care of him, perhaps out of selfless pity or perhaps out of selfish opportunity. They both have the grand old dream of owning their own ranch one day, and Lennie constantly badgers George to tell him stories of what those liberated days will be like, living off the fat of the land. In particular, Lennie enjoys the part where he gets to tend to soft, cuddly bunny rabbits. And these plans (best laid ones, you might say) are very close to becoming reality. An old, one-handed ranch worker named Candy has offered to throw his savings into the pile, so the trio would only need one month's more wages to be able to purchase their dream property.

When I view movies for this project, I keep a small notepad by my side to jot down a few ideas, in order to assist the writing of the blog. By the time the words "The End" appeared for Of Mice and Men, I glanced down at my pad to discover a mostly white page. Not very beneficial for my blog, but it clearly means I was engrossed. And I think I know why. Irresepective of the captivating story, this film possesses some very modern filmmaking conventions, considering the year it was produced. It's subtle, but Academy Award winning director Lewis Milestone uses techniques that modern audiences may recognise, setting Of Mice and Men slightly apart from other films of its era. This film may not be considered the most pioneering of its time, but I simply felt a little less distant from it as compared to its contemporaries. It contains one of the first pre-credits sequences in cinema history, an especially common practice today, and Milestone intelligently sprinkles several slow crane or dolly shots throughout as well.

As it has a number of times for 1939's Best Picture race, the discussion once again turns to the adaptation of novels into films. Not surprising since eight of the ten nominees are based on written works of prose and one more on a play. The difference with Of Mice and Men may be due to its source material being a novella rather than a full length novel. As a consequence, it doesn't seem to encounter the same issues plaguing some of the other films. (Although, Gone With the Wind's almost four-hour running time perhaps sets that film apart, as well, for an entirely different reason.) Of Mice and Men is a perfectly paced drama, with the right amount of action and tension.

Finally, the main reason Of Mice and Men works so well is its genuinely compelling story. The characters draw us in with their identifiable foibles. Even Lennie, to whom we may not immediately relate, has a dream that is universal, that of a better life. In fact, all the characters share similar passions and hopes, and they all seek comfort in others to reassure them that their dreams are not complete fantasies, that they can plausibly be obtained. And then there's the chilling finale, but rather than reveal too much, I'll merely encourage those who have yet to see Of Mice and Men to discover the ending for themselves.

To return to my fondness for pop culture, the two main stars in Of Mice and Men, who, incidentally, both deliver fine performances, are both far better known for other projects. As George, you will probably recognise Burgess Meredith as either Rocky's trainer or The Penguin in the campy 1960s TV version of Batman. Playing Lennie is Lon Chaney, Jr., who, despite having several dramatic roles, became most famous for his portrayals of monsters, in particular the Wolf Man, in the horror movies of the 40s, 50s and 60s.

1939 - Stagecoach

A brief and inconsequential anecdote from today's journeys in the Big Apple:

I was on the 5th floor of a building on 42nd Street, heading to the elevator to go back down to the lobby. There was already a woman waiting, and as I approached, the elevator doors opened, so I naturally just hopped in after her. She asked me, "What floor?" and I told her the lobby, simultaneously noticing that she had already pressed number "9". Oops. I hadn't bothered to check to see that the elevator I was stepping into was actually going down. And obviously it wasn't. She graciously pressed "1" for me as I uttered the clichéd joke about going along for the ride. But when we got to the 9th floor, she took half a step out, realised she'd forgotten something, stepped back in, pressed "5" and giggled with embarrassment. So, back we went to the 5th floor, she got out and I continued my ride down to the lobby. Going along for the ride, indeed.

Nothing meaningful about that story. I just thought it was mildly amusing.

After my mostly redundant elevator ride, I made it home to watch another 1939 Best Picture nominee...

Stagecoach
Director:
John Ford
Screenplay:
Dudley Nichols
(based on the short story "The Stage to Lordsburg" by Ernest Haycox)
Starring:
Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell, George Bancroft
Academy Awards:
7 nominations
2 wins, including Best Supporting Actor

A classic Western, Stagecoach follows a diverse group of strangers as they travel from the town of Tonto, Arizona bound for Lordsburg, New Mexico. There's an alcoholic doctor, an exiled prostitute, an embezzling banker, a pregnant cavalry officer's wife, a gentleman gambler, a whiskey salesman and an honourable outlaw. All crammed together in a six-horse stagecoach, helmed by an excitable driver and supervised by the marshal that has brought the outlaw into custody. The doctor drinks the salesman's whiskey. The gambler is protective of the cavalry officer's wife. The outlaw flirts with the prostitute. And the banker just gets on everyone's nerves. All the while, they ride under fear of attack by the local Apache tribe.

Stagecoach is big adventure, that's for sure. There are plenty of chases and shootouts and guys falling off horses. It's the ultimate game of Cowboys and Indians. Despite the repeated use of the rear projection effect, which, although common in 1939, looks excessively fake by today's standards, there is a great deal of genuinely wide open spaces. The picturesque Monument Valley serves as the landscape for most of the outdoor scenes, a location the great John Ford became fond of shooting. And I can see why. It is stunning, even in black-and-white.

Rounding out the film is a fair chunk of humour, too. The diversity of the stagecoach's passengers makes room for assorted light-hearted moments, thanks to a very entertaining cast. Not to mention the incredible stunts. Real eye-popping stuff. Although, the technique used to make the horses stumble to the ground was, apparently, rather inhumane. Nonetheless, there is at least one shot in which a horse face plants the dirt only to immediately rise and stand motionless, almost in defiance, as if to say, "I'm NOT doing that again!"

John Wayne, as the Ringo Kid, made his breakout performance in this film, shifting away from his B-movie roots and it's no wonder. He has a very strong and impressive presence, that of a very likable leading man. Thomas Mitchell won an Oscar for his role as the very alcoholic Doc Boone. Also of note, in wonderfully comic roles, are Andy Devine as the stagecoach driver and the appropriately named Donald Meek as the meek whiskey salesman. I didn't make that up. His name is actually Meek.

Stagecoach is a very well crafted Western. John Ford, with his clever selection of shots and the sequence in which they are presented, turns those crucial scenes into a fine lesson in filmmaking. This film has definitely earned its reputation for being a benchmark to which all other Westerns are compared.

1939 - Goodbye, Mr. Chips

This marks the first time in the project that I have watched two films (and, therefore, made two posts) in the same day, something that may need to occur more often. As mentioned in my first post, to successfully meet my arbitrary deadline, I need to keep up a steady pace of at least six movies per week. A little over two weeks into the project and I'm already behind! I'm somewhat restricted by how quickly Netflix can send me my next DVD, but also by other circumstances, including a brief trip to Atlanta next week, where I may not have any access to DVD-playing devices, let alone the time. Thus, now I attempt to catch up, before I fall even further behind, by increasing the movie to day ratio. It's a hard life.

Tonight, Kat and I watched another nominee from the 1939 Best Picture race...

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Director:

Sam Wood

Screenplay:

R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West and Eric Maschwitz

(based on the novel by James Hilton)

Starring:

Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Paul Henreid, Terry Kilburn, John Mills and dozens of schoolkids

Academy Awards:

7 nominations

1 win, for Best Actor

Spanning over sixty years, the tale of Mr. Charles Chipping is indeed an epic one. He's a bashful yet amiable man who begins a teaching career at an English boys school. On his first day, the students get the better of him and, as time goes on, he suffers from a lack of popularity amongst the students and staff. Still shy, he reluctantly tags along with a colleague on a walking tour of Austria, where he meets and falls in love with Katherine, a modern woman who helps to break him out of his shell and who also bestows on him the nickname "Chips". Upon return to the school, his newfound confidence translates into a newfound teaching style, one to which the students really respond. Years come and years go, and he teaches sons and grandsons of past students, ultimately becoming a much-loved and integral part of the institution.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips is a charming and often funny film that, like Wuthering Heights, sometimes suffers from its attempt to cram everything from the book into the movie. However, due to its more limited focus on one character, it doesn't feel quite as rushed as the Brontë adaptation. Most of the haste occurs in the latter half of the film. It's almost like a series of vignettes. One 30-second scene, and then we skip five years. Another 60 seconds, and we move forward ten years. But the first half is very well-paced, especially the Austria sequence. And despite its later briskness, by the end, there is a sense of fond familiarity with this man's life.

The script is genuinely funny at times, but perhaps Latin puns aren't everyone's cup of tea. Still, there are several April Fool's jokes that are sure to elicit a chuckle, as will the scene in which Mr. Chips proposes to Katherine while running alongside the accelerating train in which she is sitting.

Robert Donat won a much-earned Oscar for playing Mr. Chips, a role which required him to portray the character at several stages in his life. Donat's measured performance renders each stage in a starkly distinct manner, even if he relies slightly on a caricature for the old man version (pictured). There is a clever consistency to his portrayal even as Mr. Chips evolves, so he manages to elicit pity at the character's initial timidity, without making his later camaraderie with the students seem contrived. I'm a big fan of Greer Garson as well. A very natural actress for her time. She plays Katherine with such charm and intelligence, it's hard not to fall in love with her yourself. Child actor Terry Kilburn is refreshingly versatile as at least four generations of children from the same family.

It was not lost on me that this is now the third of three 1939 nominees that ends with the main character's death. But, at least in this film, there is less of a tragic sentiment. As Mr. Chips passes away, one is left with the feeling that his was a life well lived. I almost had the urge to whisper to the screen, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." ... Almost.

1939 - Dark Victory

Since I have an international audience (if I have an audience ... are you out there?), let me briefly ponder the differences in spelling between Australian English and American English. As an Australian, I correspondingly spell words using Australian English, which, presumably, is directly derivative of English English, so no further explanation needed. But now that I live in the United States, I am introduced to what is almost an entirely different language. Having been exposed to so much American culture as a child, I have been fully aware of most differences in spelling for quite some time, but I still wonder how things got changed in the first place. I mean, who on earth decided that Americans didn't require the use of the letter 'U' in certain words? And who first did the presto chango of the 'R' and the 'E' at the ends of other words? And why, oh why, does 'aluminium' lose an entire syllable? Was it all a result of the first Americans' hostility towards all things British that they felt compelled to massacre their language? Or did they just want to make things easier to spell? (Is 'jewellery' really that difficult?)

On that note, let me analyse the next in 1939's line of nominees...

Dark Victory

Director:

Edmund Goulding

Screenplay:

Casey Robinson

(based on the play by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch)

Starring:
Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan

Academy Awards:

3 nominations

0 wins

Long Island socialite Judith Traherne is a party girl. She drives fast, drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney. But when she begins to experience headaches and double vision, she is persuaded to see a doctor, who subsquently refers her to a brain specialist, the handsome and charming Dr. Steele. After a brief consultation, the good doctor insists that Judy have more tests, and despite her dismissiveness of her symptoms, she reluctantly agrees. The news is bad, of course. She has a nasty old brain tumour, on which Dr. Steele attempts to operate. Unfortunately, the prognosis after the operation is even worse. She'll be dead within a year, but for some inexplicable reason, he managed to cure her of her symptoms and is confident her demise will be relatively painless, aside from the blindness she will experience just before she expires. But in a move with which the AMA would most certainly disapprove, he decides the best course of action is to not inform his patient of her fatal condition. Instead, he asserts that the operation was a success. It all becomes more complicated, of course, when the doctor and patient fall in love and plan to wed. The AMA would have a field day with this guy.

Dark Victory sometimes feels a tad manipulative in its emotional content, but as I have hinted at in the past, that was more or less standard fare for this time period. Sure, a modern version might be more subtle and less sentimental, but the story is still a moving one, especially in its final scenes. And I got a real sense of the glamour and excitement that must have pervaded the making of films in the golden era of Hollywood. I mean, movie-making has always seemed like magic to me, but back then... well, maybe it's just the nostalgia that exudes from those films. Bette Davis photographed through a soft-focus lens, parading around in spectacular gowns, sincerely declaring her undying love. Pure classic Hollywood. And where else do you hear men describe a fist fight by saying he "socked" him? Makes me wish I was born in a different time.

Bette Davis, and her Bette Davis eyes (pictured), are the backbone of Dark Victory. She carries the film with her versatility, moving from snobbishly care-free to heartbreakingly brave. Emerging from her second Best Actress win the previous year, she was nominated again for this film, this time losing out to Vivien Leigh. Davis is joined on screen by George Brent as the doctor. Humphrey Bogart, just before he made the switch to leading man, gives a valiant attempt at an Irish brogue in his role as the lovesick stableboy. Future leader of the free world, Ronald Reagan, is very charismatic as one of Judy's fellow party animals. And Geraldine Fitzgerald, who I enjoyed just yesterday in Wuthering Heights, is again delightful as Judy's best friend Ann.

I was a little concerned, though, with the lack of medical professionalism in the film. I'd like to think real doctors in the 1930s didn't allow smoking in hospitals and indeed told their patients when they were going to die. The medical explanations in Dark Victory definitely seemed implausible. Would a person with a brain tumour really just go blind and then suffer an otherwise painless death in a matter of minutes? Then again, I'm not a doctor, and I'm probably just comparing it to medical explanations in more modern movies. Which are clearly more sound. I mean, obviously it's much more believable that you can cure people with laughter.

So, that's only the second of 1939's Best Picture nominees that I've watched and it's already shaping up to be another tough decision... Only eight more to go.

1939 - Wuthering Heights

As I launch into the Best Picture nominees of 1939, I am reminded of the stark differences between films from that era and films of today. There has been a great evolution in the art of cinema over the last seven decades. Acting has developed, directing has matured, but one of the most obvious transitions in my mind is that of the film score. It must have been an innovative composer, indeed, who first discovered that his orchestration did not need to consist entirely of instruments from the strings family. I mean, seriously, had composers in the golden years of Hollywood not heard of the flute or the oboe or the trombone? Or were violin manufacturers offering some kind of pay-per-use scheme? It seems almost every score in classic cinema is an oozing mishmash of stringsy drones and sighs. How on earth did people survive before rock and roll?

Pardon the rant. Obviously, I'll need to wear my respectful film connoisseur hat when I watch these movies and accept that there were different standards back then. And I'll never need to compare films from different years anyway, so it matters very little. Still, a little rhythm guitar isn't too much to ask, is it?

Late last night, I watched the first nominated film from 1939...

Wuthering Heights

Director:

William Wyler

Screenplay:

Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht

(based on the novel by Emily Brontë)

Starring:

Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, David Niven, Flora Robson, Donald Crisp, Geraldine Fitzgerald

Academy Awards:

8 nominations

1 win, for Best Black-and-White Cinematography

Despite the fact that I had studied Emily Brontë's novel in high school, I had never seen any filmed version of Wuthering Heights. Unusual, since I was not opposed to substituting the reading of books with the watching of movies. A mostly successful technique until my graduating year, when the class was assigned Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda. The Ralph Fiennes/Cate Blanchett film was still a few years from completion... But, I digress.

Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a poor young boy taken in by a wealthy family. He quickly bonds with the daughter of the house, Cathy, and, as they grow up, their friendship blossoms into a deeply passionate love. Heathcliff's love is certainly intense, almost stalker-like, and Cathy is seemingly fickle. He runs away a couple of times. She marries another man. And every time he returns, they seem to just get angry with each other. The story spans a great many years, told almost entirely in flashback, as the housekeeper relates it to a new neighbour.

The one main drawback of this film is that age-old problem that arises when lengthy novels are adapted for the screen. Even leaving aside the fact that the film essentially omits a great portion of the latter stages of the book, it sometimes feels too rushed and simplified, especially the first half. Once Heathcliff returns from America as a wealthy man, we breathe a little, but until that point, we are speeding through the years with great haste. There's not much chance to allow everything to sink in. The love between the two main characters is established rather briefly and so, when they constantly bicker throughout the rest of the film, one can't help but think they'd better off without each other.

The opening scenes are particularly eerie (perhaps enhanced by the fact that I watched this late at night), although I remember the novel containing a lot more ghostly apparitions, a by-product of the abridged script, no doubt. Nonetheless, when Cathy's ghost first cries out, I had the equally eerie Kate Bush song running in my head for the next half an hour.

Another slight deficiency, presumably due to the budget, was that the sweeping moors of the novel were reduced to one small hill, shot from the same angle in each scene. Although the black-and-white cinematography was superb, it definitely could have benefited from panoramic landscapes.

Acting styles have progressed over the years and melodrama has given way to naturalism, but, that said, Wuthering Heights contains a great deal of impressive work from its cast. Merle Oberon is striking as Cathy. David Niven is perfect as Linton, the man Cathy marries. And the great Laurence Olivier delivers a brilliant performance, as well. Although, for a man with a reputation for being one of the greatest actors of all time, he sure does overact a lot. Granted, the script calls for him to slap Cathy twice, immediately wince in remorse, and then pronounce, "It doesn't help to strike you," so I suppose he's not all to blame. The child actors who portray the younger incarnations of the two main characters carry their scenes very well, despite the young Heathcliff having the floppiest fringe I've ever seen. (For my North American readers, a 'fringe' is the Australian equivalent of what you refer to as 'bangs'.)

My favourite line in the film comes when the doctor, after seeing to a sickly Cathy, proclaims to her carers, "Keep her in the sun and give her plenty of cream and butter." If doctors today maintained the curative effect of fatty dairy products, I'd get sick more often.

It also occurred to me how similar Timothy Dalton is to Olivier without realising that the James Bond star had indeed played Heathcliff in a 1971 version of the story. In fact, watching this classic version of the film compels me to view later versions as well in the hope that they might be more thorough. Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche starred in a 1992 version that might be worth a look. But with my current viewing schedule, it may be some time before I get around to that. I'll have to be content with watching Monty Python's semaphore adaptation instead.