There were arguments. Lang wanted the man to be a lawyer. No, said Mankiewicz; an ordinary guy, a John Doe. It seems clear that at first in America, Lang had difficulty grasping the possibilities of a John Doe; he was still living in an atmosphere of the crowd and great men. Lang wanted elements of race in the story. The studio wouldn’t have it. There was even an idea that the man’s girlfriend (Sylvia Sidney) would fall for the lawyer investigating the case. That is gone, too, though maybe it lingers in glances.
It is also fairly clear that Lang had serious arguments with his star, Spencer Tracy, and with his cameraman, Joseph Ruttenberg. Lang was far from the easiest guy to get along with—after Fury he did not make another film at M-G-M until Moonfleet in 1955.
So it’s important to stress that, despite working within the studio system, Fritz Lang made something utterly uncommon and un-Metro-like out of Fury. It is a blazing indictment that doesn’t feel like America. Lang is still recoiling from the sudden, exposed energies of the mob in Germany. Yet if Fury is not quite America, it’s close enough to teach America a lesson. “I could smell myself burning,” says Tracy’s victim. And he delivers the line with a terrible harshness that makes this a rare political statement in American film. Above all, in its view of people—the collective of ordinary guys—there is an accumulated loathing. You can see how far Lang fears and anticipates the crowd.
Tracy is immense, still, and dangerous. In Sylvia Sidney, Lang found the great face of his early American films. And the supporting cast is very rich: Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, and Arthur Stone.
Reviewing the film in England, Graham Greene smelled the burning, too: “I am not trying to exaggerate, but the brain does flinch at each recurring flick of truth in much the same way as at the grind-grind of an electric road-drill: the horrible laughter and inflated nobility of the good citizens, the youth leaping on a bar and shouting, ‘Let’s have some fun,’ the regiment of men and women marching down the road into the face of the camera, arm in arm, laughing and excited like recruits in the first day of a war.”
In that shrewd view of excitement, we have the unexpected discovery that Lang in America may be as harsh as he was “at home.”
Gaslight (1944)
Once upon a time, it was alleged in Britain that it was a crime when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, intent on filming the Patrick Hamilton play Gaslight, was trying to buy up and destroy every print of the 1940 British film, directed by Thorold Dickinson. Of course, there should have been room for both, and now that the Dickinson film has been recovered—and despite the fascinating, morbid cruelty in Anton Walbrook’s performance as the husband, a man who secretly yearns to be exposed and punished—still the George Cukor version, done at Metro, is a more satisfying picture.
The play was a great success in London and on Broadway, where it was called Angel Street, with Vincent Price as the husband. But the Hamilton text is set in a very short time period, and as it begins the husband is already a terror and a needle to the wife. He is driving her crazy, or rather he is arranging events to make her feel uncertain about her sanity—hence the new use of the word gaslighting. What does he want? Oh, just some vulgar jewels that are somewhere on the property or in the attic.
To see the Dickinson film nowadays is to get the idea that Gaslight would work without the jewelry; in other words, it is just for sport, to pass the time and vent his malice, that the husband is trying to drive his wife mad. As such, there is more than a hint of Pinteresque intimidation to come in Hamilton’s setup—and Hamilton is at his best when dealing with unmotivated dislike or ill feeling.
What makes the Cukor film more sophisticated and genre-pleasing is that Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman really do seem like lovers at first. The American film back-tracks to trace their romance, and that has the effect of shifting the balance of the old play: Hamilton was interested in, and half admiring of, the husband; the Metro film is clearly a vehicle and an ordeal for the wife—and thus it was no wonder that she might end up in Oscar territory. But Ingrid Bergman’s victory is also a reflection of her own profound attachment to sadomasochistic feelings. She was at her best as a victim, and there is no doubt that we shudder for her stability, especially when she is caught between the unkind stealth of Boyer and the insolent sexuality of Angela Lansbury as the maid (a brilliant performance). But I think Bergman secured the Oscar because of the resolve and the fierceness with which she then tortures Boyer.
Of course, I have so far omitted Joseph Cotten’s Scotland Yard detective, which is no attack on Cotten—always a valiant actor and often priceless. But this character is a sham and a waste of everyone’s time. If only Hamilton had found a way for the wife to solve and surmount her own problem. But I don’t think he ever liked women enough, or trusted them to be strong. So the melodrama lumbers along toward a stupid happy ending. Even in the Cukor film there is every evidence that marriage is a nightmare to be avoided at all costs.
The General (1927)
The world does not deserve Buster Keaton—yet he does not complain. He is devoted to his beloved, Miss Annabelle Lee, yet what does he get in return? Simply her haughty-miss assumption that if he’s not wearing the gray yet (the nation is at war—civil war), then surely he must be a coward and not worthy of her attention. Let me tell her something: when it comes to attention, she’s hardly a starter if she considers that a man of such indifference and sterling, engineer’s impartiality might even feel the breeze of a cannonball on his smooth cheek. This is a man who lives inside his own head (the only safe place to be), for whom that noble locomotive The General is the embodiment and the projection of all inward thoughts of purpose. And a train can be a hero in war. It can defy your civil war just by continuing to keep to its schedules.
As for North and South, Johnny Gray (Keaton) works to a quite different discipline: He is yin and yang (surely you know that restrained face from the great films of Ozu and Mizoguchi). It is not that Buster has no feelings, or even that he has risen above such things like a theoretical physicist. But he adheres to a code in which it is vulgar to express feelings. The other point of reference is Bresson. Time and again, as you watch images of Keaton, simply repeat to yourself some of the runes from Bresson’s Notes on Cinematography: “It is not a matter of acting ‘simple’ or of acting ‘inward’ but of not acting at all,” say, or “Put your models through reading exercises, designed to equalize the syllables and do away with any intentional personal effect.”
So Keaton is in the nineteenth century again, not detached from history or even being old-fashioned but because he loves the past as a secure view. It is a serene, flawless America you see. He really does not notice or bother with the war. No, the war is simply a mishap that is blocking (or missing) the sweet utility of trains. And you could say that in his innocent way Buster does draw history’s attention to this. He may even look forward to another war, where knights ride their trains like immense jousting lances.
The General is a story of mechanics and engineering in which Buster alone seems to grasp the way gears, wheels, and locomotion work and have purposes of their own that mock the disposition of armies on a battlefield. You see, Buster, in his sweet way, is quite mad. He doesn’t really want the girl—just the idea of her. And he doesn’t honestly understand how a war could be decided, not when war can cause The General to topple into a wooded gulch (somewhere in Oregon, they say), like a drugged King Kong.
So, really, the mystery with Keaton is whether we are going to go along with the cover story—that these are comedies—or have we the courage and the resolve to see that the films are demonstrations of order in an age of chaos? I am not being unduly fanciful. If you just watch Keaton and respond to his great masked desire, it is delicate order he wants. And deserves.
Gentleman Jim (1942)
Boxing and the movies grew up together. In the days when big title fights roamed the West, keeping ahead of the law, one side of the ring was often set aside for the
camera stand from which the fight would be recorded—and the movie then played around the country. Today we seem to have ground boxing down to the level of pulverized fraud, but as recently as Leonard v. Duran, Spinks v. Tyson, and the great days of Ali, the television income from a fight (network or pay-per-view) was what kept the purses fat. One of David O. Selznick’s first assignments was a film to promote Luis Firpo in such a way that he would seem to have a chance against Jack Dempsey.
James J. Corbett (1866–1933) was not exactly a gentleman—he was the son of a San Francisco livery-stable owner—but he was a “scientific” boxer. What that meant, in a nutshell, was that he was likely to employ a dodging skill that might avoid getting hurt and damaged but which placed his own punches as his brutal opponent tired. The previous type—the fighter—had reckoned it was natural to get hurt on the way to hurting your opponent more. Courage and strength would beat skill, and in those days fights were fought to a finish. Corbett was the pioneer of a way of boxing in which a man could win on points, wear boxing gloves instead of going bare-knuckle, and talk coherently twenty years later.
Corbett, after his retirement, appeared in Gentleman Jack, a “play” that concluded with an exhibition fight. Raoul Walsh’s film Gentleman Jim is derived from that play, though it was given a smart script by Vincent Lawrence and Horace McCoy. Of course, it hinges on the 1892 fight in which Corbett defeated John L. Sullivan for the heavyweight championship of the world—in fact, Gentleman Jim was meant for release on the fiftieth anniversary of that turning point in boxing history.
Walsh had spent time in San Francisco (where the film is set) with Jack London, and he was eager to get the mood of the place. I suspect that the script inflated the role of Corbett as a social figure in part because that was how Errol Flynn wanted to play the role. But in the confrontation of Flynn and Ward Bond (who plays Sullivan), Walsh found one of his loveliest arrangements for sparring heroes. Naturally enough, Bond comes on at first as an Irish braggart, but after his defeat he delivers his belt to Flynn in a scene that is one of the most beautiful pieces of hallowed sentiment in American male cinema. According to Walsh, everyone on the set was moved—and you can expect the same.
Flynn loved his role, and though he was not a heavyweight, he is magnificent stripped to the waist. Sid Hickox photographed the picture, and the period feeling is very well done. The boxing scenes are likely a lot cooler than the real thing, but it was still felt that audiences were unready for the violence—The Set-Up, Body and Soul, and Champion, just a few years ahead, were far rougher.
Alexis Smith plays the ladyfriend (a sure sign of social aspirations), and the cast also includes Jack Carson, Alan Hale, John Loder, William Frawley, Minor Watson, and Arthur Shields.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Was there ever a movie in which Miss Marilyn Monroe looked more relaxed, or closer to having a good time? You have to wonder what happened. Howard Hawks was a famous womanizer, but it’s hard to think of him mustering the patience to endure all the takes that soured Billy Wilder’s milk of human kindness on Some Like It Hot. It’s all too easy to think of Hawks flirting with Marilyn, and being bewildered and dismayed that she couldn’t volley a little repartee back at him. Was he uncommonly benign? Was she in between crises? It’s a serious question for biographical research, and the chance of puncturing the gloomy legend that Miss Monroe scarcely had a calm or merry day in her life. Of course, you could argue that that naughty grin of hers came from something, or you could just say that when a girl sees she’s got Charles Coburn, George Winslow, and Marcel Dalio in one film looking after her, she feels safe.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is an American classic, originally a novel by Anita Loos, funny but deadpan, about a girl from Little Rock getting ahead, and getting jewelry too, in the new age of jazz and movies. It is a superb satire on movies and their world, and it was such a success in print that it sparked a 1926 stage play where June Walker played Lorelei Lee. That led to a 1949 stage musical, where Carol Channing was first seen by the world as Lorelei. The show had music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin, including such songs as “Bye Bye, Baby,” “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” and “A Little Girl from Little Rock.” Three years later, Fox brought that musical to the screen, with Hawks directing a screenplay by Charles Lederer.
It’s a very relaxed film in which the numbers get a lot of care. There are terrific compositions in pink, black, red, and diamond in lavish Technicolor (photography by Harry Wild), with sets by Lyle Wheeler, Joseph Wright, and Claude Carpenter. There is the very adroit partnership of Marilyn with Jane Russell, who was still one of the most attractive women on the screen. Their singing voices blend very well, and Jane has a genuine affection for Marilyn—you can see it and feel it, and I’m sure it’s as helpful as anything else. When the two of them turned, in full costume, to the flourish of Jack Cole’s choreography, something called glamour was in full sail.
Still, I treasure the film for the more intimate scenes. Marcel Dalio is an inspired mess as the judge in the court scenes, and the idea of Charles Coburn simply beholding Marilyn Monroe is always a touching version of the dreamer and the dream. But the scenes between Lorelei and Henry Spofford III (Winslow) make the most tender romance in the picture. Let me just say that in the original Spofford was an adult. It was Hawks’s idea to use Winslow and to make him a three-hundred-year-old child.
Germany Year Zero (1948)
At some moment in the late 1940s, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini were proposing a picture to Sam Goldwyn. They were not married yet, but they were locked in scandal, so that they were almost bound to work with each other. Goldwyn was encouraging. He had a soft spot for Ingrid, and he admired the director’s Rome, Open City. He liked the story Rossellini was outlining. But then something troubled him, and he asked if he could see another Rossellini picture. Sure, said Roberto—I’ve just finished Germany Year Zero. That blew it.
After the film played, there was silence in the screening room. A couple of days later, Goldwyn called Ingrid and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do the movie. I can’t understand the man: I don’t know what he’s doing, what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know anything about budgets; he doesn’t know anything about schedules.” Alas, Ingrid had to agree—and they weren’t married yet.
Germany Year Zero was scripted by Rossellini, Max Kolpé, and an uncredited Sergio Amidei. It’s the story of a German boy, Edmund, who lives in the ruins of Berlin after World War II. In a way, Rossellini was acting on the experience of his colleague Vittorio De Sica that the neo-realist approach worked very well if you had a child as an appealing central character. That was the model for De Sica’s Shoeshine. But the child in Germany Year Zero is one of the most intractable and unappealing of movie children. Yes, his life is very hard and he is scrambling to survive. But Edmund is a little Nazi still. He hungers for a revived Reich, for Nazism brought back, and in the most sinister passage in the film he sits amid the rubble of the city listening to a recording of Hitler. Had enough yet? Well, finally, this boy will kill himself.
Of course, this is not quite all. What is remarkable about the film is the way a moving camera traces the boy’s grim life. Even in the ruins and with very limited means, Rossellini and his cameraman, Robert Juillard, achieve astonishing passages of sheer movie direction in which the city is sometimes like a desert island, sometimes like a madhouse. The boy may be insane. He never comes close to that natural appeal shared by most children. Bergman herself pointed that out, and Rossellini confessed that, once in Germany, he had been so consumed by anger and rage that he could do nothing but make the boy hateful.
So Germany Year Zero is a truly terrifying film—to see the basic element in life, the emblem of hope and innocence, so warped. It makes a very candid, brutal film, and in many respects there may be no other movie that comes so close to the devastation of postwar Europe. The boy himself, Edmund Moeschke, was not starved or deprived, but he has such a hard, closed face. The first
time I saw Germany Year Zero I couldn’t be sure whether it was a feature or a documentary. That was Rossellini’s aim, of course, and Ingrid Bergman might have taken the ambiguity as a warning. But no one who has seen the film will ever forget it.
Gertrud (1964)
Coming just four years before his death, the stillness and intensity of Carl Dreyer’s Gertrud and the seeming lack of cinematic vitality dismayed many festival audiences who wanted to acclaim the maker of The Passion of Joan of Arc. It was hard for them to see how far Dreyer had advanced. And it was a puzzle—in the age of Godard, perhaps—to realize that a succession of formally arranged two-shot conversations could be as absorbing or as painful as the heightened close-ups from Joan. More than forty years later, Gertrud looks like one of the great films, an assault on bourgeois morality and compromise, and a plea for passion even if the quick gaze found little of it in the film.
As the story starts, the marriage of Gertrud and Gustav Kanning (Nina Pens Rode and Bendt Rothe) is over. They sit in the same spaces, but she cannot look at him. And it is clear already that her search for love is frustrated by the fact that Gustav—soon to be appointed a cabinet minister—wants to maintain the decorum of having a consort. There is a chilling visit from Gustav’s mother—to collect her allowance—that outlines Gertrud’s future.
She is leaving for an affair with a far younger man, Erland Jansson (Baard Owe), a composer, possibly a great talent, but a selfish young man, a determined wastrel, someone waiting to use Gertrud. Their town is visited by a great poet, Gabriel Lidman (Ebbe Rode), a man in middle age. Once upon a time he and Gertrud had been lovers. She was ready to give up everything for him, but she found a scrap of paper on Gabriel’s desk on which he had written how woman’s love and man’s work are mortal enemies. So that was the end of their affair, and it cannot be regained now. In the end, Gertrud decides, even at her age, to go to Paris and enter the Sorbonne. In the coda, she has gone from blond to white hair. Axel (Axel Strøbye), her sponsor in Paris is with her. But she has published a book on Racine, and she plans her end. A simple headstone will say “Amor Omnia,” and the grass and the anemones will grow over her grave. The door closes on the small house where most of the action has taken place.
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