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November 18, 2008
An Alphabet of Movies
Ziegfeld girl and Jewish silent film star
Anna Held cranks a Mutoscope.
My friend Dirty Harry tagged me to list movies, any movies, using the alphabet as my guide. Now that's a great idea.
Confession: I only list movies that I like or love.
As always, I will have nothing to do with propaganda films made by Communists or facists, no matter how talented. These are filmmakers who propped up genocidal regimes and aided—remember movies are moral and immoral landscapes—in the torture and murder of millions of innocent people. Goodbye Leni Riefenstahl, Sergei Eisenstein and of course the useful European fools with cameras: Costa Gavras and Gillo Pontecorvo.
For this list I've decided to concentrate heavily on silent films and films from Hollywood's golden age.
You know why?
Imagine if you attended high school, then college and never studied Shakespeare or the western classics? Just started off with modern lit., say a bunch of narcissists like Roth, Bellow, and Updike. You'd be getting kind of a narrow education, right?
Oh, wait, that's exactly what's happening in many American colleges right now. Who cares about the scrawlings of dead white males?
Anyhoo, if you don't watch great silent and classic films, you're missing out on some of the most glorious and important chapters in movie history.
Just saying.
Okay, here goes:
The Awful Truth, 1937, One of the finest screwball comedies of all times. Cary Grant was a superb craftsman who understood that properly modulated reaction shots were the secret to effective film comedy. Irene Dunne, quietly underplaying her roles, was one of the greatest screwball actresses in Hollywood—evuh. What's the awful truth? Cary and Irene are desperately in love even as they are getting a divorce.
The Big Parade, 1925. King Vidor's stunning look at an ordinary man caught up in the meat grinder of World War I. John Gilbert was a matinee idol who flamed out on booze and babes, but here he proves that he was much more than just a pretty face. One of the glories of the silent screen.
Still from City Lights. Charlie Chaplin
with Virginia Cherril, the first Mrs. Cary
Grant.
City Lights, 1931 My very favorite Charlie Chaplin film. A beautiful blind flower girl needs money for an operation so she can regain her sight. Sure, it's sentimental hokum, but the story builds beautifully and if the last shot doesn't rip your heart from your chest, well, you don't have a heart.
Day of Wrath, 1943. Witchcraft in 17th century Denmark. The Nazis suspected that director Carl Dreyer was making a parable about the persecution of the Jews. They were right. One of the greatest films ever made—by a devout Christian.
Easy Living, 1937. Jean Arthur gives one of the best performances of her career in this depression-era comedy where bedrooms are as large as the Coliseum. And where men and women duel with clever words until they realize that, ah yes, they are in love. A silken screwball comedy.
Flaming Youth, 1923. Colleen Moore, according to F. Scott Fitzgerald, was the flame who lit the Jazz Age and this was the film that got the age rolling. In 1923 Moore was making, get this, $12,500 a week. Those were the days before income taxes when a dollar actually had some buying power. Moore was an electrifying and adorable screen presence and now she's all but forgotten and that is a tragedy.
Grandma's Boy, 1922. The three great silent film comedians were: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Lloyd's films had the tightest scripts. There are numerous set-ups and pay-offs that are so clever they just take your breath away. Lloyd always said that this 60-minute film was his personal favorite. A hopeless coward learns to be a hero with the help of his tiny but indomitable grandmother, and in the end Lloyd gets the girl. Simple, and oh so elegant.
He Who Gets Slapped, 1924. The great Lon Chaney stars as a brilliant scientist who is cheated out of his discoveries and ends up as a clown in a circus—who gets slapped every night. Sounds sick right? I guess. But it's got organic logic. Victor Sjostrom directs with a steady and poetic hand, and it all comes together in a little known classic. Norma Shearer, not yet a star or Mrs. Irving Thalberg, co-stars a Consuela, the bareback rider.
Intolerance, 1916. D.W. Griffith not only pioneered film technique, but taught film audiences how to read the thinking processes of movie characters. The magnificent crane shot in the Babylon sequence still has the ability to overwhelm the jaded modern viewer. In his declining years, Griffith used to visit Yiddish theater stars Molly Picon and Jacob Kalich, get hammered on Slivovitz while the duo would entertain D.W. with Yiddish melodies.
Joan the Woman, 1917. The early, cinematically ambitious Cecile B. DeMille, before he became master of the leaden biblical epic: “Oh Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!” A World War I soldier finds himself transported back in time where he meets and is inspired by Joan of Arc.
The Killers, 1946. Burt Lancaster in his screen debut. Ava Gardner was never better as the femme fatale. Crackerjack screenplay by Anthony Veller, Richard Brooks and the uncredited Walter Huston. The ultimate film noir.
The Last Command, 1928. Josef von Sternberg sans Marlene Dietrich. Here, Emil Jannings plays a former Tzarist General reduced to playing a Tzarist General in a Hollywood movie. A stunning work about love, politics and movies with William Powell and the smoldering Evelyn Brent who ended her days, tragically forgotten, in a small Westwood apartment.
My Best Girl, 1927. Mary Pickford started with D.W. Griffith but they repeatedly clashed because Mary refused to conform to Griffith's reductive Victorian view of women. Pickford pioneered a more naturalistic style of acting, more suited for film. In this movie she plays a stock girl in a department store who shows the ropes to the new guy, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, who's “pretty dumb.” Mary doesn't realize that he's the heir to the department store fortune working undercover to learn the business.
Night at the Opera, 1935. This is my very favorite Marx Bros. movie. Did you know that Buster Keaton worked on the script? The stateroom scene might be the funniest movie scene ever filmed.
Of Human Bondage, 1934. Bette Davis as Mildred, the blond cockney slattern, rips up the screen as she spits out her lines, contempt heaped upon contempt, reducing the nebbish Leslie Howard to a quivering hulk of nothingness. This is the role that made Bette Davis a star.
Pandora's Box, 1929. Off-screen, Louise Brooks was a nymphomaniac, a dipsomaniac and a self-destructomaniac, so when she was tapped by G.W. Pabst to play Lulu, it wasn't much of a stretch. No wonder she didn't bother reading the script. Brooks ended up as the mistress of various rich men, a sales girl in Saks Fifth Avenue, a call girl and finally as a snarling old lady living in a one room apartment in Rochester N.Y.
The Quiet Man, 1952. John Wayne returns to Ireland to reclaim his family's farm. He meets and falls in love with fiery Maureen O'Hara. Stuff happens. Most of it involved with a dowry. John Ford caresses the Irish countryside like a long lost lover.
Red Dust, 1932. A Pre-Code Hollywood gem. Gable and Harlow starred in six movies together and they were a combustible pair. In this yarn, Harlow plays Vantine, a B-girl—I'm pretty sure that's movie talk for prostitute—who is on the run from G-d knows who and what. So, naturally she schleps upriver to a totally gross rubber plantation in Indochina—before Ho Ch Minh got all kvetchy—and cracks wise to Clark Gable until he reels her into his manly embrace. And then Mary Astor shows up. Total oy-vey.
Sadie Thompson, 1928. Gloria Swanson is best remembered as the unhinged former silent screen star—“We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!”—in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. But she was a great star of the silent screen and never unhinged. Sadie, yup, another B-girl, arrives in Pago Pago to start over—in Pago Pago?!—Fat chance.
The Toll of the Sea, 1922. Anna May Wong, the great American-Chinese actress was 15-years old when she starred in this silent movie. Her performance is disciplined and unusually understated for one so young. This is also the first film to make use of the duo-tone color process. Lovely and sad this movie is also a deeply sympathetic look at the troubled Chinese-American race relations.
Anna May Wong
Unfaithfully Yours, 1948. Preston Sturges had a run of top-flight screwball comedies at Paramount that still leaves yours truly in awe. He wrote, produced and directed. Talk about talent. Unfortunately, he also drank. A great career down the toilet. Rex Harrison, brilliant but insanely jealous, suspects his wife, Linda Darnell, of infidelity, as he conducts a symphony. Darnell, a star-struck Texas beauty queen, arrived in Hollywood with a pet chicken in a cardboard box, and a parasitic family on her coat tails. She fell apart under the star machine almost instantaneously. But Sturges coaxed a superb performance out of the fragile girl.
Vertigo, 1958. Jimmy Stewart, a retired San Francisco policeman falls in love with a dead woman. That's the set-up. Hitchcock takes his sweet time with tons of exposition. Yet it works. Kim Novak, who escaped from the clutches of Harry Cohen only to fall into the clutches of Hitchcock, is reduced to mannequin status. But again, it works, because basically she's playing a corpse. When Brian De Palma and I were working on Body Double we screened Vertigo. And when the film ended Brian cackled appreciatively and I just sat there stunned, wondering how Hitch pulled it off. A towering achievement.
Wings, 1927. The first great air combat movie. The dog fights still send shivers up my spine. The film cost 2 million dollars and in 1927 that was a lot of money. Clara Bow has a supporting role but, as always, she is brilliant and her reveal, Bow's lovely and lively face popping up from behind a pair of undies on a wash line, is simply brilliant. William Wellman, a veteran of the Lafayette Escadrille, was just 22-years old* when he directed this masterpiece. Gary Cooper, ahem, discovered by the amorous Bow, has a small but memorable role.
*Correction: Wellman was 21-years old when he joined the Lafayette Escadrille and 31-years old when he directed Wings.
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, 1998. Actress Joan Chen directed this moving story that takes place during Mao's genocidal Cultural Revolution. A young girl is sent to the countryside to learn how the peasants live. Soon, she discovers that she's never going to return home. She struggles against corrupt local party officials. I spent time in China scouting locations for a film that never happened and heard similar, heart-breaking stories.
You Only Live Once, 1937. Henry Fonda is the star of this movie but it's Sylvia Sydney's—born Sophia Kosow—beautifully modulated performance that makes the story hold together so perfectly. It's the classic bad-boy, good-girl yarn. Ace cinematographer Leon Shamroy molds velvety shadows around the doomed lovers with the artistry of Rembrandt.
Zulu, 1964. Ninety British soldiers against several thousand determined Zulu warriors in the Battle of Rorke's Drift, 1879. No reason to fight, really, except they are there and honor demands it. The choreography of the battle scenes is like an Astaire-Rogers dance scene except with agony, blood and death. We understand the simple but deadly Zulu tactics and marvel at British resolve. Yes, indeed, once upon a time there was a Great Britain. No more, no more. One of my favorite war movies.
Dirty Harry has also tagged: Ed Driscoll, Kyle Smith, Christian Toto, MovieBob, Some Came Running, Self-styled Siren, and it all started with Blog Cabins.
I'm not going to tag any bloggers with this MEME—no idea what a MEME is, but I'm told that's what this is—so I'll throw this A-Z film listing to my seraphic readers. It's fun!
Okay folks, it's that time of year again. Please support Project Valour IT. Here at Seraphic Secret we ask that you make a contribution to the Air Force:
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 07:14 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
Well I've seen Vertigo.
*sigh*
Posted by: soccerdad ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 18, 2008 08:01 AM
This list reads like a syllabus for a college course of great cinema. Right off the top of my head: "A Primer for the Literate Film Lover."
Posted by: Karen Avrech at November 18, 2008 11:18 AM
Night At The Opera is one of my favorite movies. There is a simple test for friendship with me.
If you don't appreciate the Marx Brothers then we probably aren't going to get along as it is clear that you are a humorless tyrant. ;)
Posted by: Jack at November 18, 2008 02:36 PM
Vertigo. What an absolutely amazing movie. You're right about the lengthy exposition, but the combination of plot, fine performances, cinematography and that hauntingly beautiful musical score makes it probably my favorite Hitchcock movie.
Posted by: Paco at November 18, 2008 05:10 PM
I'd love to see that list shown in a marathon on one of the old movie channels. A few I've seen and most I haven't.
Posted by: Chad at November 18, 2008 06:58 PM
Soccer Dad:
That's fabulous, only 25 more to go!
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 08:39 PM
Karen:
Great title. Very, y'know, literate.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 08:41 PM
Jack:
When I was single I used to tell people that if a girl did not love The Seven Samurai, well, I could not love her.
Karen absolutely hates The Seven Samurai.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 08:46 PM
Chad:
If you order from Netflix you can have your own film festival; just curl up on the couch, you and your loved one, and melt into a puddle of movie bliss.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 08:58 PM
Paco:
Endless exposition that no one would attempt in today's movie land. But yes, it does work. In fact, it's mesmerizing. Stewart's reaction shots are perfect and let's not forget Barbara Bel Geddes, her small role as good girl is crucial as counterpoint to the pathology Stewart inhabits.
Great score that pulls it all together.
Easily Kim Novak's best performance.
I really love this film.
It did not do well when it was released and the critics were less than kind. Which, once again, shows that MSM critics are less than useful.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 09:06 PM
brilliant
I could never have come up with such a list. I'd love to get all those on dvd to savour.
Posted by: Batya at November 18, 2008 09:38 PM
Batya:
I'm so glad you enjoy my A-Z movie list. To the best of my knowledge all the movies are available on DVD. You too can turn yourself into a complete movie geek!
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 18, 2008 09:47 PM
I love old movies and I enjoyed reading your list. When I was about 10 my father introduced me to the 1939 version of "Beau Geste." Would you agree that the first few minutes of that movie make for one of the best opening scenes in cinematic history?
And thanks for teaching me a new word: dipsomania. I had to look that one up!
Posted by: RR at November 19, 2008 03:21 AM
Robert,
Maybe you can organize a 3-week or 4-week mini series featuring some of these great films, with you leading a discussion afterwards.
You can call it: "YICC Goes to the Movies: An Entertaining and Enlightening Evening" and do it at your shul. You could ask for a minimal donation at the door to help cover the costs, and use some of the funds towards the Ariel Avrech Lecture Series.
Posted by: Pearl at November 19, 2008 05:31 AM
Yes, Zulu! Also my favorite war movie, and quite possibly one of my favorite movies of all time.
I must say, being a graduate of film school, if we had been compelled to watch even half of those films and write about them, the experience would have been worthwhile. Instead I have garbage papers still squirreled away on my HDD about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 8 Mile, and Badlands.
Great list.
Posted by: John Milton at November 19, 2008 07:55 AM
Rare, vintage photos, jewelry, furniture from the estate of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Pickfair, their legendary Beverly Hills mansion, will be auctioned off Nov.22-23. The cool thing is you can bid online at www.auctionnetwork.com/pickfair. You don't actually have to be at the auction. Thought i'd pass along to you fellow Mary Pickford lovers!
Posted by: Avery at November 19, 2008 09:25 AM
Thanks for the list. But check that detail on Wellman. If he was 22 in 1927, he'd have been 12 with the Lafayette Escadrille in 1917.
Posted by: Bibi at November 19, 2008 01:15 PM
RR:
I love "Beau Geste." Have not seen it for a long time, but yes, the opening scene is a knock-out!
Dipsomaniac: love that word.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 19, 2008 01:45 PM
Pearl:
Funny you should mention an Avrech night at the movies. For the second year my shul is sponsoring two nights where I present "The Greatest Jewish non-Jewish Movies."
This year I'm presenting "Ride the High Country" and "The Lady Eve." the common theme is "teshuva."
I give a 20 minute intro and then show the film. And then because this is a Jewish crowd, there are tables groaning under the weight of food.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 19, 2008 01:53 PM
John:
In my humble opinion you should get a refund from your dopey film school. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Really, that's just revolting. I kinda like "Badlands," though, at times, it's like watching paint dry. In the original script, which I own, the Sam Shepard part is written for a much older man, which, when you think about it, makes narrative sense.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 19, 2008 01:59 PM
Avery:
I am on it. I am so on it. Oh gosh, Karen is so going to kill me.
Thanks so much for making me aware.
But gee, why do I feel so sad?
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 19, 2008 02:02 PM
Bibi:
I keep telling everyone that yours truly is completely math disabled.
I guess you can't fly combat when you're 12-years old, even in France.
Sigh.
Thanks so much for the correction. I'll check it out and figure out where I went wrong.
There are so many possibilities.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 19, 2008 02:07 PM
Hey Robert
Am I the only one who does be cheering for the Zulus when watching that great movie. Its just that when I think of Great Britain as you describe it, I think of the World Wars, the beatles, Princess Di and all. I dont think of the red coats carving up continents without any consideration for local ethnicity. When watching the movie I sympathise with the nightmare predicament the soldiers find themselves in. Believe it or not, one of the 11 soldiers that were awarded the victoria cross at Rorke's drift was a past pupil of my high school. However, when it comes to the British soldier armed with a rifle in Africa versus the Zulu defending his land with a spear. You get the picture. In my book, Zulus good guys. British baddys.
Posted by: Ted at November 20, 2008 09:51 AM
carving up continents without any consideration for local ethnicity
That is a late-20th-century statement. It is without context in earlier eras.
Besides, the Zulus themselves were without a shred of concern for any "local ethnicity" other than their own. They were quite the warlike tribe, who thought nothing of making war against their neighbors.
Posted by: kishke at November 20, 2008 10:26 AM
Robert,
The State Government paid for my school, so its not a huge deal (thanks lottery players!) and I was able to bang out a few screenplays under guidance.
I do believe that you confused Badlands and Days of Heaven in referencing Sam Shepherd (Badlands is Martin Sheen). I love Days of Heaven, gorgeous film...really I like all of Malick's work except his debut.
Also, Ted
The Zulu's had rifles as well (Martini Henry's taken from the slaughtered British soldiers at the massacre of Isandlwana...where spears worked just fine.) They just didn't know how to properly wield them.
Posted by: John Milton at November 20, 2008 11:51 AM
How about His Girl Friday? Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, the most sparkling dialogue EVER. It's my favorite film, I re-watch it at least once a year.
Posted by: Lucinda Bendavid at November 20, 2008 12:47 PM
Kishke
A late 20th century statement on my behalf, maybe. But you're language is totally colonial in nature. It reeks of, those uncivilised natives that need a good bit of civilised western values beaten into them.
John Milton
I find it a strange point to make. As you pointed out they defeated the British at Isandlwana (see the great prequel "Zulu Dawn", Bob Hobskins, Burt Lancaster, Denholm Elliot)and took their weapons. It hardly puts the Zulu soldier on an even keel when you think he has to kill a British soldier, take his gun and fight on.
Sorry folks, my sympathies are staying with the funky Zulus. Just love the gear they wear.
Posted by: Ted at November 21, 2008 06:50 AM
But you're language is totally colonial in nature. It reeks of, those uncivilised natives that need a good bit of civilised western values beaten into them.
I don't know what you're referring to. Unless you mean my comment regarding the Zulus being warlike. Are you disputing it?
Posted by: kishke at November 21, 2008 10:22 AM
John:
You're right, I did mix up the Malick movies. Thanks so much for the correction.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 22, 2008 07:46 PM
Lucinda:
His Girl Friday is also one of my favorite movies of all time. Look, I left so many great movies off my list: Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Citizen Kane, Chinatown, The Godfather, The Wild Bunch, Shanghai Express, Sunrise, My Favorite Wife, The Lady Eve...
Sigh.
Just shoot me.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 22, 2008 07:54 PM
Some charming Zulu pre-colonial customs:
When they made war on neighboring tribes they would kill all them men, rape and then enslave the young women, and then slaughter the elderly women.
The Zulu King was an absolute tyrant and there were often purges in the Zulu kingdom that were much like Stalin's purges, except bloodier. Charges of betrayal were every-day affairs and executions were common, especially when a Zulu king had his eye on a rival's cute wife or a kraal of fat cattle. It was a deeply corrupt kingship, soaked in blood and murder.
When a Zulu king died he was buried with his gold and cattle—and his wives were buried alive with him.
The Zulus were the most war-like, imperial tribe in the region and they engaged in total war against their neighbors wiping out entire tribes on a regular basis. They also engaged in prolonged torture, roasting men alive for days at a time.
The British put a stop to these "local customs." One could argue that the British were evil colonials, but their Judeo/Christian values were, to my mind, far superior to the genocidal barbarisms of the Zulus.
The film treats the Zulu warriors with great respect. What it does not show is the almost-mutiny that was taking place behind the scenes among the Zulu warriors who wanted to get the heck out of Rorke's Drift for they had a feeling that their king didn't know what the hell he was doing.
For a complete portrait, and my source of the sometimes psychotic Zulu Nation, see: The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 22, 2008 08:11 PM
Excellent comment, Robert. Thank you for listing the facts that formed my impressions.
Posted by: kishke at November 23, 2008 10:00 AM
Kishke
Yes I was referring to your comment about the Zulus being warlike, but no I don't dispute it. Robert's description of the Zulus above is accurate I'm sure. But the context of our conversation was the morality of the war and for you to bring up the savagery of the Zulus is in my book, colonial talk. The savagery of the natives has been used throughout history to justify conquest so I am always suspicious of it.
Posted by: Ted at November 24, 2008 12:38 PM
Ted:
Let's keep in mind that the Zulus were also imperialists/colonists. Using the word "colonial" does not put an end to an argument—at least to this non-Marxist. In fact, let's be honest, take a look at Africa and ask yourself, is it in better shape now or when she was under colonial rule? Most of western African has devolved into unspeakable savagery and endless civil wars, many using child soldiers, mass rape, starvation, and mutilation Except for the hell of the Belgium Congo, colonial rule under the British and French was rather mild.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at November 24, 2008 02:59 PM
Robert
I accept your point about post independence Africa but consider the following. Your country and mine both have something in common. We both had civil wars after the British were expelled. No doubt in both cases there were many in the British establishment gleefully claiming that they knew all along the locals would never be able to run the place properly. Would either the Americans or the Irish have welcomed the British back amidst the savagery of our own civil wars. I suspect not. One unfortunate fact of human nature (most evident in Africa) is that people will always tolerate far worse from their own bad leaders than they would from foreign foreign bad leaders. As my dear sweet mum says "Better the devil you know"
Posted by: Ted at November 25, 2008 09:47 AM
Let's keep in mind that the Zulus were also imperialists/colonists.
Not to mention slaveholders and slave traders, as were many African black tribes.
Posted by: kishke at November 25, 2008 09:48 AM
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Posted by: andrewstras at December 12, 2008 01:21 AM