Joy of Living (1938), Tay Garnett, with Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

There's a moment about halfway through Tay Garnett's 1938 screwball comedy, Joy of Living, when Irene Dunne, as the harried workaholic stage star Maggie Garret is handed a message that causes her to speed up her singing during a radio performance, driving the conductor (the eternally prissy screen pansy, Franklin Pangborn) into a flying armed tizzy. It's as if Dunne is commanding the movie to finally get going. This acceleration, perhaps unintentionally, marks the approximate moment where Joy of Living morphs from a mechanical and lumpy minor screwball comedy into a first-rate one for the next half hour. Preceding this is the first really good laugh in the movie, when Garret and her free-spirited stalker, Dan Brewster (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), become caught in a revolving door, with the result that only short bursts of their argumentative chatter are heard as the door spins. Up till then, the movie is reminiscent of, but inferior to others of its vintage ilk; the presence of Alice Brady, again the annoying matriarch, continually brings to mind My Man Godfrey. The patriarch is Guy Kibbee, whose main sin seems to be sneaking whiskey into his tea with the help of his conspiratorial butler, played as in countless 30's comedies by another queenly stalwart, Eric Blore. The family is a bit of a drudge, mooching off the fame and fortune of Maggie, not unlike the brood in 1933's Bombshell, that marvelous vehicle for Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy. As is de rigueur for populist screwball an uptight character obsessed by work, money and status will eventually be freed of those concerns by a carefree one, and gain romance in the bargain. Joy of Living was a flop in 1938, but it can now be seen as a worthy if imperfect example of its type. The most delightful moments take place in a lower class eatery run by a blusterer of indeterminate Slavic accent played by the omnipresent Billy Gilbert. Dan marks the number of tall beers consumed by Maggie by throwing pretzels onto an overhead candlelight. By the time the stack is as tall as the candle, the snockered Maggie is no longer too worried about the beer stein lid continually clamping down on her hat veil and she starts drinking straight through the veil. Dunne is luminous in this film; her performance is every bit as fine as in the previous year's comedy masterpiece, The Awful Truth. Fairbanks is game as well; one wonders why he wasn't cast in more screwball films. After some slapstick hijinks in a roller rink, where Maggie's "yuk yuks" seem to channel Curly from the Three Stooges, the film winds down to more conventional genre concerns before a wonderful finale of barefoot sloshing in the rain. If you can get through the uneven first half, Joy of Living lives up to its title. Grade B-

Pretty Poison (1968), Noel Black, with Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld

Whenever I read a critic of the professional or armchair variety condemn a film for being “dated,” my response is typically to condemn him or her for having a pea-brained critical acumen. I say this as preface because Pretty Poison does not date at all; it seems trapped in a timeless universe, and yet there are elements that trap it within the time of its making. The most prominent of these, and really the only one that sticks out sorely, is the generic made-for-TV style musical score. Shorn of that, we might not be pulled out of our trance. Pretty Poison is entrancing, even if the directorial style is sometimes flat. This film and I have a long history. I saw it on television as an adolescent in the early 70’s — at which time it blew me away — and not at all in three decades since. Seeing it again at such remove was a rare and intriguing chance to see how far (or how little) my critical sensibilities have grown and changed. Impossible to see for so many years, the film only premiered officially in a video format, on DVD, in 2006 and until then had developed the kind of legend that affixes itself to long-unseen curios. The film thus haunted me for years, and I don’t think that would have been the case had it not been for the casting of Tuesday Weld, the kittenish high-schooler from 1965’s Lord Love a Duck again cast as a high-schooler in this, though perhaps less convincingly. Oddly, thinking about both films, Weld’s channeling of both innocent and cynical manipulator is a hallmark of each. Whereas, the former film was a slapsticky, gaudy black comedy, Pretty Poison is much more subtle, both dark comedy and tragedy. Of the many pretty poisons in the film, she is doubtlessly the prettiest, and perhaps the deadliest. We first see Weld in the film marching across a verdant field with her classmates in her high school majorette uniform. This, obviously was powerful stuff when I was 12. Perhaps not surprisingly, in that I have not changed. That’s how Anthony Perkins, as Dennis Pitt, first sees her in this; far from the prison mental hospital from which he was just released and casting about for a new life — something we know is doomed right off, partly because, well shit, it’s Tony Perkins for chrissakes and second because his counselor/probation officer (John Randolph) has just told him the real world does not tolerate fantasy and he’s already begun to spin fanciful lies. Part of it is meant to hide his past; a tragic mistake borne of adolescent anger and resulting in arson and manslaughter that put him in the crazy house. Now “cured” he puts his skills at fantastic creation and re-creation of his identity to work on the ostensibly innocent 17-year-old blonde, Sue Ann Stepanek. Perkins seems to be a tad old to be the youngish man the script seems to want us to believe — since part of its aim is to make him a 60s symbol of discontented youth — but once paired with Weld the two form a convincing core unit of youthful rebellion. Thus, the anti-establishment, anti-parent, anti-corporate shenanigans begin in earnest. Walking up the gangplank to the chemical factory in the podunk town (work is freedom but looks awfully like a return to prison), he already shows signs of deep trouble, snapping clandestine photos with a tiny spy camera of the factory operations as its pipes spew blue and red toxins into the river. It’s as if he’s the only one in the world who sees or cares. Snatches of red punctuate Pitt’s world throughout, in the bottle of red acid, a lizard, and flashbacks of the arson fire. Already we’re on his side, even though we’re not quite sure where he’s taking us. His seemingly imperturbable face hides very little; he’s an oddball, everyone knows it and hates him instantly. Pitt’s fanciful inner life externalizes: He’s a CIA man on a mission, and immediately young Sue Ann is drawn into the game. Eventually the game, and Sue Ann, make things all too real for Pitt and he damned near becomes infantile in his powerlessness. An act of industrial sabotage, as Perkins seems to regress to his arsonist past, not only succeeds too well but spurs on the bloodlust in Sue Ann. Bad news, because it turns out that Sue Ann has a past too, one of abuse, the depth of which is never spelled out, but the violence that finally comes of it gives us more than enough of a hint. The question is: does Sue Ann transform from one thing to another during the course of the picture or is her innocence a front all along? It’s hard to talk about plot points in Pretty Poison without giving too much away, so I’m choosing to leave a lot of detail vague. If the film were better known I’d have less of a problem with that, but as it stands the film remains a relatively (and unjustly) unknown cult item. The ending is a real beauty, operating at several levels: Pitt’s self-sacrifice and Stepanek’s pettiness form a mutually necessary harmony. One of the funniest jokes in the film comes at the end, when Weld, obviously by this point far from a great representative of the “Pepsi Generation,” is very pointedly handed a Pepsi by a policeman. If Pepsico had paid for that product placement company reps might very well have been pissed at how director Noel Black and his writer twisted it into a sort of kiss off. Happily, my enthusiasm for the film remains strong, so much so that I’m not moving it off my top list for 1968. Its place is secure. Grade B+

Ivan the Terrible, Part II (made 1946; released 1958), Sergei Eisenstein, with Nikolai Cherkassov

I saw the first film of this opus in college two decades ago and was deeply impressed by the visual design but was unable to accept the eye-rolling histrionics. That’s why it’s taken me so long to watch the second part; in fact, I’ve dreaded it. But curiosity finally won out. Clearly I was ready for it this time because …Part II is balls-on fun, much livelier than I remember part one being. The plot is simplistic to the max, but there’s something mysterious about the whole thing: the dire death plotting and power plays conducted in such close quarters — close to the vest yet obvious to all, and all players oblivious to the larger world outside. Apart from the fancy baubles and raiments this crew could just as well be wielding knotty clubs and grunting in a cave. Appropriately, the whole feel is cavernous. In Eisenstein, every shot and movement counts, so the eye is always engaged. What has happened to me as a filmgoer in the intervening years since seeing …Part I is my acceptance of flamboyance and camp in the cinema: a more thoroughgoing appreciation for the likes of Sternberg and Sirk and their spawn. After awhile, the heightened movements and bellowing seem normal. And, who knows, this might very well have been the way that self-important nobles in Russia acted in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, I viewed a poor quality videotape with the much-vaunted Agfacolor banquet scene — a wild and manic delight — rendered in black and white, giving the scene an unintentionally eerie quality that washes out lines and details and darkens all but the most prominent whites (in ensuing days I was able to see the scene in proper color). The scene, in which the Boyars’ plot is revealed by the Tsar’s weak-kneed nephew, bursts with crazy Russian mania and the way in which Ivan turns the tables on his would-be assassins is hilarious. And anything that was banned by Stalin for being too much a reflection on his own modus operandi has to be worth a look. Grade: B

Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), Roland Joffe, with Paul Newman, Dwight Schultz, Bonnie Bedelia, John Cusack

Roland Joffe and Regis Wargnier should form some kind of club for directors who are repeatedly given large budgets to make sweeping historical epics that suck the soul out of otherwise interesting events. I give credit to each for making at least one watchable film in their careers, The Killing Fields (Joffe) and Indochine (Wargnier). Each shows a certain flair for logistical handling and a modicum of passion. This attempt at reconstructing the story of the Manhattan Project is so banal and rife with miscues, misfires and baffling editorial selection that one doesn’t even know where to begin. It’s one of those films where there seems to be a lot of ostensible detail, and yet when it’s over you feel like you’ve learned absolutely nothing about the history, the people and the issues involved. The actor cast to play J. Robert Oppenheimer is nondescript and bears no resemblance to him and tries his damndest with what he has to work with, ineffectually. As General Groves, Paul Newman makes his most embarrassing appearance onscreen since The Silver Chalice, and yet his gruff bluster at least makes his parts watchable. DP Vilmos Zsigmond shoots it "shru zee brown feeltair, cause vee know dat the vurld looked like brown doost back in the '30s und '40s" -- or so Hollywood in the '70s and '80s would have us believe. The movie is about engineers and seems to have been constructed by one. Most engineers I know lack an artistic soul. Grade: F

The Bishop’s Wife (1947) Henry Koster, with Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven

I counted this as a second viewing even though I’d only previously caught the film in bits and pieces over the years. I think what kept me from diving in fully in the past was the heavy religiosity, the saccharine emotional cue music and the idea that an angel would intercede in the relatively mundane problems of a priest who has lost his sense of priorities. After all, it took near suicide and a slew of personal disasters to bring Clarence from Heaven to save George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. The gravitas-laden emotionalism of the immediate post-war cinema had in just over a year given way to the easygoing pipe-smoking domesticity of Apartment for Peggy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and this. In any case …Peggy and ...Blandings are better films than The Bishop’s Wife; they have an airiness lacking in the somewhat stilted proceedings here. It’s a fantasy that clods around in lead shoes. The cast, especially Cary Grant, are better than what they’re in, and because of that you sometimes think the thing is better than it is. It looks smashing, beautifully lit and shot by no less than Gregg Toland, working again for Sam Goldwyn who as usual puts the money on the screen. I found it entertaining but rarely as effervescent as it should have been; one wishes for more moments like the one in which Grant as the angel, Dudley, and Loretta Young as the title character take off on a whimsical lark to ice skate with the cracker-barrel taxi driver played by the irrepressible James Gleason, another veteran of the Frank Capra stable. For a brief moment, you think that you, and he, have stepped back into something Capraesque. The idea is a clever one, but the movie never quite persuaded me. Grade: C+

Kangaroo (1987), Tim Burstall, with Judy Davis and Colin Friels

A bit of an obscurity, an Aussie movie based on a lesser regarded D.H. Lawrence book, ostensibly an autobiographical tome about Lawrence’s own stay Down Under after World War I. The film was critically pilloried as something of a mess, and Roger Ebert mused that the story seemed too inconsequential to be worth the telling. Two decades have passed and we can look at the thing afresh, and I have to say I enjoyed it. The Lawrence fictional doppelganger is played almost anonymously by Colin Friels; Judy Davis spices things up as his more clear-headed German wife. Author and wife find themselves hounded by the authorities in Cornwall during the war, he for his “pornographic” writings and socialist politics and she for being German-born. Rather naively they sail off to Australia with notions of a New World paradise but only find themselves drawn into more complex political and domestic strife during clashes between labor and right-wing fascist elements — the latter to which the author has been drawn due to his strong bisexual attraction to both his Aussie host and his wife. Male love, bonding and loyalty provide the underpinnings of his new politics, and when he can’t bring himself to pledge loyalty to the megalomaniac aristo ogre who heads the local fascisti the whole circle of his friendships fall apart. Davis, oddly at times seems to channel another Davis, Bette, as she reacts incredulously to her husband’s denial of his past and his opportunism and apparent loss of principals in trying to blend "when in Rome-style" into the new landscape. The film is episodic, but the episodes are rich in Australian history. Those looking for typical plot-driven dramatic thrusts will be disappointed. Since I wasn’t looking for those, I wasn’t. Grade: B-

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (aka, The Amazing Adventure) (1936), Alfred Zeisler, with Cary Grant and Mary Brian

Intriguingly, a Cary Grant film that even many Grant fans will not have seen or heard about. The suave one went back to England for a spell to make this, and even though it is kind of a forgettable toss-off it is nonetheless entertaining. It was written by E. Phillips Oppenheim, a hugely successful author of crime stories and such in the early 20th century who is now all but forgotten. It’s a fairly typical Depression-era populist class fantasy, vaguely reminiscent of My Man Godfrey and made in the same year. The set-up is unpersuasive: Bliss (Grant), a millionaire playboy, visits his doctor who tells him that money is causing his inner sickness. The doc bets his patient 50,000 pounds that he’ll feel better if he can live for a year on his wits alone without access to his 2-million-pound inheritance. Thus, the adventure, which sets up several cute and clever situations in which Bliss seems to skirt the edge of starvation before making good in a number of various avocations including stove salesman, and chauffeur to many of his wealthy (and baffled) friends who are not privy to the nature of the bet. And of course, there is romance won, lost, won, in the confusion. One never gets the sense though, at any point, that Bliss is really in any danger in all of this, despite his zeal in sticking to the bet. Ziesler directs this confection with little elan; in fact there seems to be no style at all to the thing, and yet the accumulation of period detail, Grant’s personality and the general fleetness make it a mildly satisfactory diversion. Grade: C-