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December 30, 2009

The Ten Top Movies (I Screened) in 2009

Here’s my list of the Ten Best Movies I Screened in 2009, most I caught on TCM.

I did not see more than a handful of contemporary releases that come close to the smart pacing, narrative sophistication and honest passion of these older films.

Though I will give a strong nod to 500 Days of Summer and Funny People, two fine films. Both are beautifully written, carefully structured and oh what a relief, they vigorously espouse what can only be described as (mostly) conservative values, a welcome relief in this post-modern age where nihilism passes for, ahem, cutting edge entertainment.

But I roll with classic Hollywood, silent movies and films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Keep in mind that most of the movies on my list were produced on modest budgets, never intended as studio blockbusters.

I’m not claiming that any of these movies are classics like The Crowd 1928, or Seven Samurai 1954. I am saying that these ten films are wonderful entertainment from Hollywood’s great dream factory, well worth seeking out.

Ernest Torrence, John Gilbert and Mary Nolan fight over the last drop of water in Desert Nights, 1929.

10. Desert Nights, 1929, starring John Gilbert, Ernest Torrence and Mary Nolan. Directed by William Nigh. Titles by Marian Ainslee, Adaptation by Endre Bohem.

This was Gilbert’s last silent movie. To an adoring public he was known as The Great Lover. At one point, Gilbert was the highest paid actor at MGM earning a cool million a year. But Gilbert, enormously self-destructive, got into hot water with his boss L.B. Mayer and then booze, babes, and sound finished off a great career.

Here, Gilbert plays Hugh Roland, the woman-starved manager of an African diamond mine. Lord Stonehill, Ernest Torrence, and his daughter Diana, Mary Nolan, arrive to visit the mine. But they are impostors who grab a sack of diamonds then kidnap Roland. The trio end up stranded in the Kalahari Desert. Not knowing how to survive in the sun-baked waste, the thieves are forced to rely on their hostage in order to stay alive.

Mary Nolan, real name Mary Imogene Robertson, born into poverty on a Kentucky farm, was at age 15, a Ziegfeld beauty nicknamed “Bubbles”—draw your own conclusions. With shimmering blond hair and a shirt open to her waist, Nolan gives off Pre-Code heat like a destroying angel.

Mary Nolan, studio portrait. Before liquor, drugs and a string of abusive relationships destroyed her career and her life.

She’s a scrumptious dame who enjoys the feel of a rifle in her arms as much as a man. Nolan, almost totally forgotten, was even more self-destructive than Gilbert. A string of abusive men—including MGM fixer Eddie Mannix—beat her to a pulp. She ended up a hopeless heroin addict, and in 1948 Nolan died in Cedars Sinai of Los Angeles weighing just 70 lbs. She was 43 years old.

Desert Nights has a running time of just sixty-five minutes. It moves like a bullet and combines action and romance in a nifty, unpretentious package.

Here's a clip from the first few minutes of the film. Gilbert gets a look at Nolan’s exquisite face at about the three-minute mark. His reaction shot is beautifully modulated. And watch what Mary does right after she hooks Gilbert.

9. Parole Girl, 1933, starring Mae Clarke, Marie Prevost and Ralph Bellamy, directed by Eddie Cline. Screenplay by Norman Krasna.

This film is definitely a B movie elevated by Mae Clarke’s memorable performance. Parole Girl—fabulous title—is another Pre-Code goodie that explores one of Hollywood’s most durable stories: a (sorta) good girl gone (sorta) bad, only to go (truly) good once she meets the right man.

Clarke plays a sympathetic con artist who ends up in jail—the scene where she begs for mercy is gut-wrenching—and once behind bars she swears vengeance against the department store manager, strait-laced Ralph Bellamy, who refused to give her a break.

When she exits prison Mae is wearing a shockingly post-modern geometric hairdo that frames her as a sleek, deco avenger. The film is stuffed with plot contrivances that, upon reflection, are just plain bizarro. But Mae’s sincere and naturalistic acting style gives credibility to the whiplash plot turns. Her revenge is tricking Bellamy into a sham marriage—don’t ask.

Mae Clarke, her geometric haircut makes her look like a sleek Deco avenger, Parole Girl, 1933.

This little gem zips along at a dazzling pace, clocking in at—hey, I’m sensing a pattern here—sixty-five minutes.

The photography is lush and effervescent, filled with gorgeous shots that you don’t expect from a Columbia programmer. The Director of Photography was Joe August who in the 20’s and 30’s shot films for John Ford, Howard Hawks, Lewis Milestone and Frank Borzage.

Mae and her gold-digging sidekick Marie Prevost—former Sennett cutie-pie, Marie died an alcoholic, alone and broke in a cheap hotel room—are down at the heel dames, always dressed at the height of fashion. Even the notoriously cheap and vulgar head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, understood that no matter how poor was a depression-era girl, the public yearned to see their stars draped in furs and bias cut silk gowns.

Mae Clarke is best remembered for getting a pineapple in her face—here's my post about that famous scene—but if not for her fragile mental state, she could have been one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. TCM programs this beaut every once in a while, so check their schedule.

More to come in the next few days.

And here’s my list from 2008.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at December 30, 2009 09:29 AM

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