Tag Archives: classic movies

Screening Classic Hollywood: Johnny Guitar (1954)

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Warning: Spoilers for the film follow.

You ever have one of those films that you know you should have seen long before now, but for some reason it just kept getting pushed to the back burner? Nicholas Ray’s 1954 film Johnny Guitar has been one of those films for me, and I am so glad that I finally got around to seeing it.

The film centers on Vienna (Joan Crawford), whose saloon sits square in the path of the encroaching railroad. Staunchly opposed to everything Vienna stands for is Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), who resents the affection that the outlaw known “The Kid” (Scott Brady) bears for her. When Vienna hires her old flame Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden), it sets in motion the chain of events that will change all of their lives.

While Nicholas Ray’s direction is certainly evident at every moment of the film–from the sometimes painterly compositions to the emotional intensity of the drama–the reality is that it’s the clash between Joan’s Vienna and Mercedes’ Emma that lights up the screen with flames as bright as those that eventually consume Vienna’s saloon. Throughout the film, Emma serves as a sort of avenging fury, pursuing Vienna with a fiery passion that leads her to goad the men in town to do her bidding. McCambridge has a high-strung vocal power that remains me of Ethel Merman, which allows her to be a fitting foil for the more inward-facing intensity of Crawford. Their first confrontation, with Vienna positioned above Emma, while their conversation is conveyed in a series of closer shots, is one of the best in the entire film.

Indeed, the film’s narrative is structured around two interlocking love triangles. On the one hand are Vienna, Johnny, and the Kid; on the other are Emma, Vienna, and the Kid. Needless to say, given that it’s Mercedes and Joan we’re talking about, there’s a lot of ambiguity about who Emma really desires and why exactly it is that she hates Vienna with such a fiery passion. When Vienna ultimately shoots Emma, she also seems to be killing part of herself as well.

If I’ve largely ignored the male cast so far, there’s a reason for that. As solid as Sterling Hayden’s performance is, he’s always overshadowed by the two women. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the supporting male cast is a surprisingly talented bunch, and they help to elevate the film at some of its weaker moments.

Generically, the film sits at a somewhat awkward confluence of genres: part western, part melodrama, and perhaps some other bits thrown in there as well. In his commentary on the film, Martin Scorsese says that the film is operatic, and that strikes me as the most accurate way to describe the film’s affective register. Much as I love both Joan and Mercedes, they are definitely turning in performances dialed up to about an 11 on the melodrama scale, and while I personally love that type of performance, I can understand why it falls so easily into the category of camp (with all of the dismissiveness that all too frequently entails).

Critics frequently point out that the film can be read as an allegory about the paranoia of the McCarthy era, but to my mind an equally valid (and less reductive) reading would focus on the fact that Vienna is an emblem of modernity. Not only is she a woman who sets out to get what she wants, she is repeatedly associated with the railroad. Indeed, Emma goads the men on to ever greater violence by suggesting that because of Vienna they will find their customary freedoms curtailed by an influx of settlers from the east. The fact that Vienna emerges victorious and alive after all of Emma’s attempts suggests, I would argue, the ultimate triumph of modernity over the violence of the lawless, archaic west.

So, while it might be a flawed film (since we all have to make that caveat), I continue to find Johnny Guitar an extraordinary film full of richness and depth that a camp reading unfortunately effaces. The film is ultimately a testament to the ways in which one director can subvert the rules of genre and create a film that endlessly fascinates.

Screening Classic Hollywood: “The Star” (1952)

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This film follows in the tradition of such films as Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve, movies that expose the terrible toll that Hollywood stardom takes on those enmeshed within the system, particularly female stars. This film sits at the confluence of several important influences: Davis’s star text, competing and sometimes overlapping genres (the “star” film, the maternal melodrama), and the impending decline of the old studio system.

The film follows Margaret Elliot (Davis), as she struggles with the reality that her once-bright star has quite thoroughly faded. After a drunken night on the town, she is saved from her downward spiral by an old co-star, Jim (Sterling Hayden), and she sets out to reclaim her stardom. Upon realizing that Hollywood has no place for her other than as an object of pity and scorn, she ultimately goes back to Jim and the happy domestic partnership he represents.

Davis is the sort of star who evince hardbitten strength and heart-wrenching sadness in quick succession, and for that reason, I think, dwell deserves her reputation as one of the finest actresses to have ever graced the silver screen. Margaret Elliot seems a bit of Margot from All Above Eve (the names are eerily similar), Charlotte from Now, Voyager, and even a bit of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard. Like Norma, she loses sight of what is by focusing on what was (as Jim bluntly tells her). Beset with her failures as a star, she lashes out at everyone around her, her view of the world coloured not just by her previous persona, but also by the films in which she starred.

Margaret’s fundamental crisis is, of course, that Hollywood has no place for her, now that her youthful innocence has been worn away by the years and a film industry that is always in search of the next new thing, the next youthful visage to display on the big screen. The only parts available to a woman of her age are either spinsters or harridans, both of which will subject her to the scorn and pity that she loathes (rightfully) with a vengeance.

There’s a certain sparseness to the film’s design that renders Davis’s performance so heightened as to verge on the histrionic. She knows the part she is to play, and she does it TO THE HILT. This isn’t a bad thing, actually, since this film lacks the baroque opulence of a Sunset Boulevard or the corrupt decadence of All About Eve. Instead, we are treated to the cold, rather sterile and stifling spaces of the prison and the department store, spaces in which Margaret is well and truly lost. Ultimately, she finds that she cannot endure the sort of abuse and folly that she encounters from two surly customers at the department store. Confronted with this brutal world, it’s small wonder that Margaret periodically bursts out in fits of rage and frustration.

The Star reveals the extent to which Hollywood as an industry remains dominated by the men–studio heads, agents, directors–even as it is the female stars who continue to draw in the audiences but have no real power or longevity. Like so many films of this type, The Star ultimately comes across as a conservative text, one which reminds women of the domestic imperative, of the inevitable price that women must pay as they age if they choose the world of a professional rather than as a domestic goddess.

At the same time, however, it also threatens its own ideological coherence. It is Bette Davis, after all, who dominates the screen, pushing her co-stars (especially Sterling Hayden and Natalie Davis, who plays her daughter) into near-irrelevance. This might not be the best movie Davis ever starred in, but she plays the part so fully and completely that she more than deserved her Oscar nomination. Unlike her character, she wasn’t afraid to play an aging woman who was the victim of scorn and pity, but her genius is that she imbues that role with pathos and a human dignity that a lesser actress would never have been able to attain. In doing so, she helps to lay bare the hypocrisy and fickleness of Hollywood and proves, once again, that she was a star indeed.

Screening Classic Hollywood: “How to Marry a Millionaire” (1953)

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Recently, I decided to give the film How to Marry a Millionaire another watch. It’s an important film in Hollywood history and, as a scholar of classic Hollywood, I’m always looking for new ways of thinking about this particularly important period of film history. I’m sure glad I did, because I LOVED this film.

It’s all too easy these days to adopt a camp perspective on classic Hollywood films, to laugh at rather than with them. However, in my view How to Marry is one of those gems that really does age fairly well, and it’s quite easy to find yourself laughing with the jokes. If you don’t find yourself laughing out loud, then I think you might have something wrong with your sense of humour.

Part of what helps the film to age so well, I suspect, is the extent to which it is the women who motivate the action, drive the narrative, and dominate the screen. Oh sure, William Powell puts in a nice turn, but he doesn’t hold a candle to Bacall, Grable, and Monroe. In one particularly revealing sequence, each of the women dreams about their futures with their respective suitors, showing the extent to which each of them is determined to carve out a future on their own terms. You want each of them to find the wealth and emotional happiness that they desire.

Speaking of William Powell…there’s something almost tragic about the fact that Schatze chooses the young, foppish, and not very charismatic Brookman rather than Hadley as the man with whom she wants to build a life. I mean, come on, it’s William Powell, the man who played the Thin Man! How could one not fall in love with his urbane charm, his dazzling wit, and that old-fashioned handsome (if slightly weathered) face? Of course, though, I get it. This is postwar America, and Powell, and his character, are relics from an earlier era that have to be shunted aside to make room for the new crop of young men.

Of course, each of the female stars manage to overwhelm any scene in which they appear. Though Grable is fine as far as she goes, for my money the real entertainers are Bacall and Monroe, the former because she brings her signature bite and sass to this gold-digger role and the latter because, beneath the fluffy, buxom exterior one can still sense a fierce form of intelligence. As I watched this film, it occurred to me (not for the first time) what a tragedy it was that Monroe didn’t often get to play parts that really challenged her and, more superficially, that she didn’t get to wear glasses more often. For my money though, Bacall will always be the best thing about any movie in which she appears. That voice…it does it for me.

Visually, the film is stunning, putting both the widescreen and the Technicolor to full effect. The New York portrayed in How to Marry is a utopian world of sumptuous fabrics, snappy dialogue, witty banter, and simple, sheer beauty. Given that the film was shot in CinemaScope, it’s easy to see how it wishes to immerse the postwar spectator in a glorious, glittering world of affluence and romance. The opening and closing of the film heightens this sense of presence, including both an orchestra and curtains, both of which suggest that one is sitting watching a play rather than merely observing what is going on in another room.

At a deeper social level, How to Marry a Millionaire testifies to a culture still unsure what to make of the status of women. While the hegemonic gender norms that dominated the 1950s were already settling into place, American society still struggled to accommodate female desire. It’s worth noting that two of the three marry men who are incapacitated in some way, either because of financial misfortune or physical incapacitation. The final scene of the film has Brookman revealing his vast wealth to the gathered cast, the sight of which causes the women to faint (disappearing from the frame), thus allowing them men to literally have the last word. While the film attempts to recuperate the endangered masculinity that it has put on such conspicuous display in this final scene, these unruly women are not so easily tamed.

In the end, it truly is the women who own this picture and who show us, in 2018, that the 1950s were far less stable than we remember.

Screening Classic Hollywood: “Sudden Fear” (1952)

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Say what you will, but no one could play a victimized, melodramatic heroine like Joan Crawford.  Her talents in this area are certainly on conspicuous display in the 1952 film Sudden Fear, in which she plays a popular and successful playwright Myra, who falls for a moderately talented actor Lester (Jack Palance), only to discover that he, along with his former lover Irene (Gloria Grahame) have hatched a plot to kill her.  Fortunately, she’s quite a bit brighter than they are, and so she manages to escape from them.  In the end, Lester runs over Irene in the mistaken belief that she is Myra (they are wearing a similar scarf), killing both himself and her.

One of the most compelling things about this film is the way in which it plays with voice.  It is due to the inadvertent recording of his plot by a dictaphone that Lester and Irene utilize to hatch their scheme.  The disembodied voice continues haunts Myra, an ethereal reminder of the fact that the man she has (admittedly foolishly) fallen in love with has decided that she is to be dispensed with in favor of his own desire for wealth.

There is something intensely, almost viscerally satisfying, about the fact that Lester, in his desire to kill his well-meaning and benevolent wife, ends up killing both himself and his conspirator.  Myra may be somewhat of a foolish and impulsive heroine, falling in love with a man that she barely knows and rendering herself vulnerable by attempting to leave her money and wealth to him.  However, it is precisely her generousness of spirit that makes Lester’s betrayal of her all the more despicable.  What’s more, he is absolutely ruthless in his attempts to kill her, chasing her relentlessly through the streets of San Francisco, his face and eyes becoming increasingly crazed as she continues to elude him.  Not surprisingly, we in the audience continue to cheer her on, and we feel vindicated at the poetic justice of his own destruction.

Crawford and Palance make for a compelling and somewhat unusual screen couple.  Palance was not the most handsome of movie stars, and his near-skeletal features always rendered him more appropriate for villainous roles.  He manages here to tap into a powerful male rage, one engendered in both the film’s diegesis and the broader culture by the ever-present male fear of not being able to provide or earn a living on his own.  You can practically see it seething beneath the surface, those deep-set eyes betraying the fury ever-ready to burst into the world.  Crawford offers a nice balance to him, a woman who has built her own successful career as a writer and who possesses a fundamental strength of character that allows her to survive the attempts to kill her.  However, she also exudes a certain measure of vulnerability, a willingness to believe, however foolishly, that she can also have love and completion with the man (seemingly) of her dreams.

In many ways, this film feels a bit out of its time, combining as it does the heightened emotions and victimized womanhood of the women’s films of the 1930s and the darkness of the film noirs of the 1940s.  Somehow, though, it manages to bring all of these elements together into a compelling film, and that final image of Myra/Crawford striding into the camera, head flung back in triumph, really brings it all together.  It is a stunning and uplifting reminder of the power of the Crawford star persona.  Even decades after her death, this persona manages to combine female strength and vulnerability in one indelible image that retains its power.

Score:  9/10

Screening Classic Hollywood: “Ivanhoe” (1952)

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Based on the famous novel by Sir Walter Scott, MGM’s film Ivanhoe is something of a generic hybrid, combining the boom and bluster of the traditional epic (the same studio had produced the Roman epic Quo Vadis the year before) and the swashbucklers that were such a notable part of studio production during the 1930s (such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood, both starring Errol Flynn).  However, the film is worth watching, as much for the beautiful production values (what film produced by MGM wasn’t exquisite?) as for the plot.

Set during the reign of King Richard, the film depicts the struggles within his kingdom between the native Saxons such as Cedric (Finlay Currie) and his disinherited son Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) and the Normans, especially the knight De Blois-Guilbert (George Sanders).  Caught up in the conflict are the Jews of England, notably Isaac of York (Felix Aylmer) and his beautiful daughter Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor),  the latter of whom finds herself pursued by De Blois-Guilbert, who falls desperately and somewhat hopelessly in love with her.  The cunning Prince John, however, attempts to thwart their union and puts Rebecca on trial for witchcraft.  The brave Ivanhoe enters a joust to save her, defeats and kills De Bois-Guilbert, and the film ends with the triumphant return of King Richard and the deposing of Prince John.

While the film follows the plot of the novel in its broader contours, there are some notable excisions, most of which make the film stronger and more economical in its storytelling.  However, some of the novel’s original historical purposes have also been effaced, for while the novel remains steadfastly interested in the ways in which England became England as a result of the gradual melding of Anglo-Saxon and Norman identities, the film seems more interested in the various love triangles that exist at the dramatic heart of the film.  Furthermore, Scott’s original work places a great deal more attention on the plight of the Jews of medieval England, while the film seems to see their ethnic identity as incidental to the main aspects of the plot.

Furthermore, Ivanhoe in the film becomes a much more powerful and active figure than he is in the original novel (in which he is largely laid low for the course of the novel, often a man to whom things happen rather than one who effects change on his own account).  In the hands of the always-stalwart Robert Taylor, he becomes a more traditional swashbuckling/chivalric hero, a true knight determined to protect those weaker than he is and to see the return of true honor and chivalry in the person of the imprisoned King Richard.  While I am not Taylor’s biggest fan (he is serviceable but lacks, in my opinion, a certain charisma that I usually respond to), he does bring a certain measure of honorable gravitas to his interpretation of Ivanhoe.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film is not terribly interested in the roles of trials of women (this is in marked contrast to the novel, which consistently points out the ways in which women occupy a marginal and often exploited status within medieval culture).  However, Joan Fontaine delivers a creditable performance as the Saxon princess Rowena, bringing her usual grace to the role.  And while I often like Elizabeth Taylor, she doesn’t quite bring out the tragic pathos that is such a crucial part of Rebecca’s character in the novel (which may be due to the fact that she gets so much less narrative attention than her literary counterpart), and the script doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with her talents.  Quite a shame, really, as she could have really shined as Rowena.

One last note on casting.  I always love seeing Sanders in a film, largely because no other actor besides, perhaps Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price could so compellingly play a villain.  Somehow, though, Sanders manages to inflect De Bois-Guilbert with a greater complexity as a character than emerges in Scott’s novel, to such an extent that we almost feel sorry for him when he is eventually struck down.  It’s rare to see Sanders playing someone who actually has a sympathetic side, and so this film was refreshing in offering him a little more flexibility.

All in all, Ivanhoe is a fine film, with some compelling visuals and a strong score provided by the immensely talented Miklos Rozsa.  However, it doesn’t really ask the same sorts of historical questions as either the book upon which it is based, the other epics of the period, nor even other films set in a similar period.  This is not necessarily a bad thing all told, but as someone who really loves the novel, Scott’s original work casts a long shadow that the film does not (and possibly cannot) live up to.

Score:  7.5/10

Screening Classic Hollywood: “Kiss Me Kate” (1953)

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As a queer, I’ve always had a great appreciation for the musical (I know, I know, what a stereotype, blah blah blah).  There’s just something glorious about the midcentury musical, in particular those produced by MGM, the grand dame of the studio system, the one studio that one could count on (in its heyday, anyway), to produce a glossy, shiny, fabulous film.   Thus, when I was cruising about on TCM and saw that Kiss Me Kate was showing, I knew I had to watch it.

Despite being divorced, Fred and Lilli (Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson), find themselves starring in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew).  The bulk of the film follows the performance of the play, with several Cole Porter songs thrown into the mix (this probably helps to explain the film’s undeniable queer appeal).  Just as the mains of the play find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other, so do Lilli and Fred also become increasingly convinced that they should get back together which, in true Hollywood musical fashion, they ultimately do.

In terms of cinematography, the color serves as important a function as anything that happens in the narrative.  Not surprisingly, the Technicolor is almost lurid in its intensity, speaks in a language in excess of what is happening between the characters.  Thus, while the two leads are constantly squabbling with one another and trying to avoid speaking the words that they know would allow them to say how they really feel for each other, the colors of their outfits grow increasingly saturated, until the redness of their respective costumes is so glaring that you can’t possibly ignore it.  It speaks in a language that exceeds that of the narrative, the tempestuous and unruly law of desire that always threatens to overcome even the most resistant of people.

Howard Keel has always done something for me.  While I often find the patriarchal characters he plays utterly repugnant at an ideological level, I often find that it is precisely because he is so transparently misogynist that he is so attractive (and I strong suspect this might be why so many people found him attractive in the times in which he appeared).  Whether starring as the hirsute eldest brother in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or the bellicose Hannibal in the divinely awful Jupiter’s Darling, or even as Wild Bill in Calamity Jane (costarring Doris Day), there is always something tremendously sexy (yes, I said it), about this paragon of masculinity.  And there is no one in classic Hollywood, and very few since then, who have managed to inflect their voices with such booming power (I’m a sucker for a great male voice).

Of course, I am also not blind to the almost toxic amount of patriarchy permeating this film.  I mean, it is based on one of Shakespeare’s most notoriously misogynistic plays, starring a man who almost inevitably performed in roles that required the subjugating (sometimes quite brutally and cruelly) of a woman who dared to resist his charms.  And, as in those other films, Keel’s hero remains largely unchanged by the end of the film and, I suspect, we are happy to see him so, for to tame him would be to remove those very aspects of his personality that make him so erotically appealing.  (As you can see, I like to think that my own queer readings of the film help to offset at least some of the more problematic and vexing aspects of its ideology).

All in all, Kiss Me Kate manages to combine the best of Shakespeare with the best of the midcentury MGM musical formula.  The Technicolor (not surprisingly) is as lurid as it is appealing, and the musical numbers are as spirited as one would expect from an MGM musical from the period of its greatest flowering.  As long as you’re able to bracket the gender problematics–and anyone who has learned to love classic Hollywood has probably developed that skill in ample measure), this is truly one musical you can sing along to.

If you want to read more about the MGM musical and the ways in which queer men in particular responded to them, I highly recommend the following books:

Cohan, Steven.  Incongruous Entertainment:  Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical.  Durham:  Duke University Press, 2005.

Farmer, Brett.  Spectacular Passions:  Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships.  Durham:  Duke University Press, 2000.

Screening Classic Hollywood: “Home from the Hill” (1960)

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Though it was not a phenomenal success when it was released in 1960, Home from the Hill is nevertheless a very compelling film, a fitting entry in Vincente Minnelli’s existing body of work and a film that indicates his ongoing concerns with the American family and the terrible price exacted by the expectations American culture puts on its men to behave in certain ways.

The film follows a fairly typical melodramatic plotline.  Captain Wade Hunnicutt (Robert Mitchum) is a philandering millionaire who lives with his embittered wife Hannah (Eleanor Parker) and his weakling son Theron (George Hamilton).  Meanwhile, his bastard (though largely unacknowledged) son Rafe (George Peppard) behaves as a true Hunnicutt son should, though his illegitimacy keeps him from ever becoming an heir.  Though his son impregnates local girl Libby (Luana Patten), he does not marry her, prompting his surrogate father/brother Rafe to do so in his place.  He then proceeds to raise the child as his own, a marked contrast to his own father, who steadfastly refuses to recognize him, even as he is dying of a gunshot wound (delivered by Libby’s father, who believes that Wade, not Theron, got his daughter pregnant).  In the end, Wade’s wife Hannah, who could never bring herself to forgive his transgressions, finally finds solace with Rafe and Libby.

Through the combination of Wade’s own toxic version of masculinity and Theron’s inability to live up to his father’s gendered expectations, Home from the Hill paints a picture of the tortures inflicted by the impossible ideals of American masculinity and as such is a compelling glimpse into not only the Hollywood of the 1960s, but also into the cultural and social tensions that were finally beginning to break out onto the surface of American society as a whole.  With the keen eye of someone who existed himself on the fringes of traditional American sexual mores (regardless of whether or not he had sexual encounters with men, none can deny that Minnelli had a distinctly queer sensibility), the director manages to shine a piercing light into the swirling and seething darkness at the heart of the midcentury American family.

Perhaps no actor could portray hysterically psychotic masculinity like Robert Mitchum.  From his sinister roles in many films noir (in which even his “heroic” characters contain a hint of menace) to his tour de force performance as the crazed, murderous preacher in The Night of the Hunter,  Everything about Wade screams masculinity, from his avaricious need to sleep with every woman in town to his den, which is adorned not only with his hounds, but also with the trophies of the many animals he has killed and the guns he has used to kill them.  What makes Wade such a terrifying figure is the fact that he is utterly sure of his own righteousness; his masculinity, his essential maleness, seems to be above reproach.  Part of this has to do with Mitchum’s performance and star persona, of course, and it is precisely Mitchum’s particular brand of poisonous charisma that makes Wade such a pleasure to encounter, even as we marvel at his un-self-reflexive cruelty.

Wade's den is a projection of his own toxic, hysterical masculinity.
Wade’s den is a projection of his own toxic, hysterical masculinity.

The film does make some gestures toward rehabilitating Wade and his family, mostly by holding out the promise that he can make peace with Hannah, and perhaps despite ourselves we do want to see these two broken, bitter people find a measure of peace with one another.  Ultimately, however, the reunion and resuscitation of the original nuclear family is a longing the film cannot fulfill.  In the end, there can be no salvation for the dark male figure that has caused so much misery and suffering, both among his immediate family and among the other people of the town, and it is precisely because he has sown his oats a bit too freely that Libby’s disgruntled father strikes him down.

In many ways, Home from the Hill can be viewed as a fascinating companion piece to one of Minnelli’s most famous and well-regarded works, Meet Me in St. Louis.  However, while that earlier film expressed a largely benevolent view of the post-war world by refracting it through the prism of nostalgia, this later film is much less sanguine in its opinion about whether the world is a fundamentally bright or bleak world.  The fact that Theron flees town rather than live in this broken world is the ultimate sign of the irresolvable tensions the film has evoked.

Home from the Hill is a brilliant illustration of the ways in which the melodrama–the genre most associated with the female spectator and with “women’s issues”–can also express the profound ambivalences that lie at the heart of the construction of the American male.  And as with the best melodramas (particularly those directed by the great Douglas Sirk), the ending has more than a little menace to it, as the camera lingers on the red tombstone as Hannah and Rafe walk off into what we can only hope is a more balanced and loving family than the one that preceded it.

Score:  9/10

Screening Classic Hollywood: “Executive Suite” (1954)

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As I’ve been writing and researching my dissertation, I have increasingly come to appreciate just how complicated and contradictory a decade the 1950s really were.  Shrouded as we are in the noxious cloud of nostalgia (courtesy, in large part, of the current iteration of the Republican Party), it’s quite easy to forget this was a decade that was riven by deep and often irresolvable tensions that many films, no matter how hard they tried, could never entirely resolve into coherent ideological visions.  Such is the case with the 1954 Executive Suite.

The film’s plot might seem a bit convoluted at first glance, but it is actually quite simple.  After furniture magnate Avery Bullard drops dead in the street, the other members of the Treadyway corporation begin vying with one another for executive control.  Among them are Don Walling (William Holden), Loren Shaw (Frederic March), and Frederick Y. Alderson (Walter Pidgeon).  While Walling and Alderson, unsurprisingly, represent a purer, more authentic vision for the company, Alderson is primarily interested in maintaining a faster pace of production and impressing the company’s stockholders.  After a great deal of manipulation and uncertainty, the board ultimately elects Walling to serve as the new head of the company, his vision certain to take the company into a new and brighter future.

Like so many films of the 1950s, Executive Suite expresses a profound cynicism and downright hostility to the postwar world of prefabricated homes and mass produced furniture.  The film seems to yearn for an earlier period, when furniture was made by hand and the workers could take pride in their craftsmanship.  Although it would be going too far to suggest that the film is socialist or Marxist in its orientation, it does seem to possess a peculiarly sharp sense of the alienation the worker experiences in the period of mass production.  While it stops short of advocating a truly Marxist or socialist solution to the problem of alienation, it does suggest that the post-war world should take a long, hard look at itself if it hopes to rediscover the sole of its creativity and restore a measure of its previous vitality.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Holden emerges from this film as the voice of reason and justice, and it is also not surprising that the film attempts to resolve the problems it has posed by  ensuring that he takes over the company in the end.  As always, Holden is likable enough in this role, although there is also a bit of edge to him that keeps me from being totally invested in him as the hero.  For some reason, that subtle hint of self-righteous arrogance–which I am sure was a large part of his appeal during the height of his stardom–keeps him from being completely and unambiguously heroic.  (I would also say the same of his other two iconic roles, Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard and Hal Carter of Picnic).  While he may have this edge, however, the film clearly wants us to see this is a necessary corrective to the bland, cutthroat masculinity that March’s Shaw so obviously represents in the film’s representational system.

Though his star shone quite brightly during his time at MGM, Walter Pidgeon seems to be one of those stars of classical Hollywood who never really made an impression that lasted beyond the height of his career.  Unlike other MGM stars (such as, say, Clark Gable), he just seemed to lack that certain something that would render him into a true icon.  However, here in Executive Suite he lends the affair a significant measure of gravitas, with his deep voice and commanding (if seemingly unassuming) stage presence.  Even more than Holden, he really serves as the story’s moral center, and that is the type of role in which Pidgeon really did excel.

If there’s on complaint I have about this film, it’s that it makes far too little of Stanwyck.  Of course, her most notable and enduring performances emerged during the 1930s and 1940s, but still, one would think that MGM could have done a little better in utilizing this formidable female talent.  She does have a few noteworthy scenes–as when she receives the news that Bullard is dead, which features her throaty voice and obvious grief–but for the most part the film seems unsure what exactly to do with her.

Overall, however, Executive Suite stands as a fascinating example of a period struggling to make sense of itself.

Score:  8.5/10

Why I Tweet About Classic Films

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A few weeks ago, someone asked me why I tweet about classic movies (particularly at the #TCMParty).  Luckily for me, I had given the matter a lot of thought already, so I had a ready answer.  I wanted to share a few of those thoughts here.

For those who don’t know, the TCMParty hashtag has become a popular means by which TCM (Turner Classic Movies) junkies can get together and gab about the films that happen to be showing on a given evening (or in the afternoon, or pretty much any time of the day or night).  There are some regulars–some of whom have even built that TCMParty identity in their profiles–and others who only chime in on occasion.  Regardless of how long one has been partaking of the hashtag, however, you can be guaranteed that there will be a mix of irreverent jokes (all told, of course, with a great measure of affection for the films under discussion), as well as fun bits of trivia, and other sorts of discussion about the film.  Though we might not always agree with one another, and though many of us are quite different in our outlooks on film and on life in general, the TCMparty is always a congenial and supportive space for a wide variety of viewpoints.

At first, it might seem somewhat counter-intuitive to think about TCM and Twitter in the same sentence.  There is a popular–and not entirely unfounded–perception that the channel appeals to a particular demographic.  This, most people would assume, would be middle-aged and older folks, many of whom may remember when many of the films that TCM shows (many of which come from the 1930s-1950s).  However, a cursory perusal of Twitter reveals a number of Twitter users who are in their 20s-30s, people who have a genuine fondness for classical Hollywood (there are even millennials, believe it or not!)

There is, I think, something quite exciting about this melange of people live-tweeting about these films, bringing their exciting and sometimes contentious opinions and views on these films.  While certainly we don’t always agree on how we look at films (I was more than a little dismayed to find that one of my fellow TCMParty folks did not like the biblical epic David and Bathsheba, one of my favorites of the midcentury cycle), we all share our opinions and thoughts about them.  That atmosphere is usually convivial and light-hearted, though there are often rich, textured, and nuanced conversations that spring out of the Twitter feed.

Further, conversing via Twitter has become an essential part of TCM’s brand identity, especially with their recent introduction of the hashtag #LetsMovie.  While there was, understandably, a great deal of ambivalence on the part of classic movie fans–and a concomitant fear that TCM would begin introducing newer films into its lineup–I prefer to see it as a golden opportunity to introduce an entire new generation of filmgoers to the joys and wonders of classic Hollywood.  As we get further and further from that period, and as new digital technologies displace celluloid, we should embrace every opportunity we have to keep the conversation going.

So, why do I tweet about classic movies?  Because I like sharing my love of this particular body of art with others who share that love.  As a film scholar, there is something rejuvenating and exciting about engaging with people outside of the academy, who bring to the discussion of film a variety of perspectives that are equally important.  It’s very easy as an academic to cocoon myself away from the world, and Twitter provides me an opportunity to connect with other cinephiles, folks who may not have a degree but who nevertheless possess much more film knowledge than I do (and often have their own voluminous archives to draw upon).

If you’re a fan of classic films (and who isn’t, at some level or other?) then you should definitely sign up for a Twitter account and see what all of the fuss is about.  Whether you are young or old, an experienced cinema-goer or someone who has newly discovered the joys of film, be sure to join in with the crazy, zany, but loveable gang tweeting at #TCMParty.

Screening Classic Hollywood: “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946)

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Today’s focus on “Screening Classic Hollywood” is the exemplary film The Best Years of Our Lives, one of the finest films to emerge from the 1940s and a searing and emotionally rich exploration of the plight of veterans returning home from war as they attempt to reintegrate into an American society that seems to have no room for them (and no desire to make it).  The film follows three friends:  Al (Frederic March), Homer (Harold Russell), and Fred (Dana Andrews), as they attempt to reintegrate into American society following WW II.

It is rather remarkable how many postwar anxieties this film manages to address.  The threat of atomic annihilation makes an appearance when Al’s son inquires about the possibility; the burgeoning of youth culture (and its terrifying and unruly physicality, particularly in the form of rock and roll) rears its head when Al and family go out for a night on the town; and of course the very real problem of the returning veteran and the stress of acclimating once again to the world.  This problem is particularly acute for both Fred and Homer, the former because as a “man” he must resign himself to working in a new bureaucratized economy, and the latter because he has lost both of his hands to an accident during the war.  Indeed, the film’s handling of Homer’s disability is remarkably sensitive, and he emerges from the film as one of the only characters to emerge from the film unambiguously happy and satisfied (the film ends with his marriage to his sweetheart).  Nor does the film shy away from showing us the trials he goes through on a daily basis, and in that sense it is a remarkably forthright film about both the challenges and the successes of those with disabilities.

Given that this film emerged immediately after the war ended, it should come as no surprise that it remains rather conservative in its gender politics.  The only woman who shows a true sense of agency and independence is Fred’s wife Marie (Virginia May0), who grows discontented with him and ultimately files for divorce.  The film clearly views her as the antithesis of good-girl Peggy (Teresa Wright), who comes to stand for the sort of doe-eyed loyalty very much in keeping with the emerging gender ideology of the postwar period (and of Wright’s star text in general; see:  The Little Foxes).  Myrna Loy does present some measure of female independence as Al’s wife Milly, though even she doesn’t really attempt to break out of the role of housewife, and instead must keep a relentless eye on Al and his always-imminent slide into alcoholism (hardly surprising, given March’s penchant for playing caddish yet dashing alcoholics).

The problem for these veterans, as the film sees it, is twofold.  On the one hand, there is the issue that these are men who are used to the stresses and strains of war, as well as the close bonds that develop between men.  More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the postwar world is a very different beast than the one that preceded it.  This is a world of heartless bureaucracy and toadyism, of corporatization and emasculation, where everything is reduced to the value of the commodity:  the customer is always right (as Dan is unfortunately reminded by his simpering, effete boss, who played a similar role as the sinister and cynical barkeep in High Noon), and even the planes that he once flew are being gradually recycled to make prefabricated homes.  The scene in which he wanders the graveyard of airplanes is one of the most evocative in the film, a chilling reminder of the transience of the modern commodity and how quickly Americans wanted to put the realities of war behind them and return to a life of normalcy (and to a life of luxuriant commercial luxury in suburbia).

Overall, the film offers a nuanced and deeply empathetic view of the problems faced by returning veterans, and in that sense it remains strikingly relevant today.  While American politicians remain as hawkish as ever, they also seem either reluctant to actually deal with the after-effects of war on the home front or unable to accept the fact that these wars have significant physical and emotional consequences on those who fight them (most likely it’s a mix of both).  The Best Years of Our Lives, like so many of the social problem films of the immediate post-war period, remain startlingly relevant to the pressing concerns of the present day, a potent reminder that film was, and remains, an art form capable of addressing and helping us work through pressing social issues.

Score:  9/10