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gromit

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:01 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Goodness, I watched Reap the Wild Wind (1942). Cecil B. DeMille, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, Rays Milland and Massey. What could go wrong? Maybe there was a wartime shortage of ideas, and they had to piece the script together from scraps. The period action-adventure genre, which was revived in the mid-30's, seems to be getting awfully creaky here.

Set in the 1840's, the opening narration intones that the very idea of a united states depends on shipping from north to south around the Florida Keys. This will be repeated later, in case we forget. And on those keys there are salvagers ready to strip a wreck, and unscrupulous salvagers ready to cause a wreck. Pirates! (sort of).

John Wayne plays a ship captain who is a decent guy who gets duped (and beaten up) a lot, and so joins with the bad guys after he thinks he's been wronged. His conscience will nag at him for this. Relationships get complicated, as Paulette, the head of an honest salvage company after her father dies, falls in love with Capt. Wayne after she helps rescue him, after the bad guys knock him out and wreck his ship.

Then Paulette goes to Charleston to woo Wayne's boss into absolving him of any wrongdoing for the ship's sinking. So Paulette has two suitors, but is just leading on the boss of her beau in order to protect him. Paulette's sister, Drusilla, is in love with the brother of the bad salvager, and in order to meet him, she stows away on Capt. Wayne's new steamship, the very one in which he has made a deal with the baddies to wreck, because he mistakenly believes something or other.

Throw in a small well-dressed monkey, mostly designed to add exoticism and scare Louise Beavers. Add a cute little terrier used at times as a ventriloquist dummy for yucks. And some character actors, especially a friendly old salt who has one of those pappy beards without the mustache, and says colorful old salt kinds of things, and is Paulette's captain. And can't forget lots of model ships and wave machines.

Late in the film, we get to a trial scene, where Capt. Wayne is on trial for purposely sinking his vessel. Everything comes to a head involving all the main characters. Raymond Massey, the evil salvager hams it up as the lawyer representing Capt. Wayne, while the shipping company boss, Paulette's other suitor, is leading the prosecution. Which doesn't make much sense, since he is merely the lawyer-cum-head of the shipping company, and not a gov't agent. But at least now it finally makes sense why the lawyer of the shipping company, Ray Milland, figured so prominently in the story up to now. They had found a trial scene and stitched it into the plot, and so needed one of the main characters to be the good lawyer. Okay ...

Paulette, the shipping boss, and pappy captain, all witnessed the sinking. They had tried to intercept the ship and stop Wayne. But Paulette sabotages her own ship because she trusts that Capt. Wayne is a good guy. So they float helplessly in the fog and windless seas right next to the reef where Wayne has arranged to smash his steamboat to salvageable bits. The evil salvagers are waiting near by to salvage evilly. So in court, evil salvager, defense lawyer Ray Massey, turns the tables, saying that Milland was there because he had ordered that his own ship be sunk in an insurance scam. Which doesn't make much sense, because that would mean that Massey's client, Capt. John Wayne, who is on trial, would be guilty as charged of intentionally ramming his ship into a reef.

Then a bunch of silly courtroom theatrics and poor scripting ensues. Surprisingly, a gritty moment arises. The first mate of the wrecked ship, one of the baddie gang, is cowardly and going to testify. They go to get him and we see his legs dangling up high, a presumed jail cell suicide (though it's strongly hinted that this was murder). Just as the case is collapsing, the issue arises of whether Drusilla was on the ship and therefore ... murdered! The brother of the bad salvager becomes enraged. Paulette finds it even harder to stick by her accused lover, Capt. John Wayne, if he did this breach of shipping etiquette, and killed her sister. But no one knows if Drusilla was indeed on board.

The wreck is said to be unstable and diving down to it impossible. This is repeated by different characters in quick succession in a court of law, so must be true. So Milland and Wayne -- sworn enemies as suitors of the same woman, and also the prosecutor and accused in a potentially capital case -- both agree to dive down to the wreck to look for Drusilla (or in more romantic terms, to look for the shawl which her lover had given her).

So the courtroom adjourns to the wreck. Milland gets a silver aqualung, while Wayne has a golden one. Thus, easy to tell apart underwater. In the wreck, Milland finds half of the shawl sticking out from some containers, but there's a giant squid wearing the other half. He gets attacked. Wayne starts leaving, but comes back and frees Milland. Then Wayne gets suckered and is doomed by the squidly tentacles of justice. Milland tries to help; gaffs the squid around the eye; ink spills everywhere. Likely a metaphor for the sloppy writing and messy script.

Meanwhile, up on deck a dangerous storm is arriving. Also, the baddies try to cut Milland's airhose, but Capt. Pappy is on to that. Milland surfaces alone, and produces the shawl. The brother/lover starts denouncing his evil salvager-brother, who simply shoots him in front of the assembled court on deck. Milland, still in his aqualung, quickly grabs Pappy's gun and shoots and kills mean mista Massey.

Paulette and Milland -- along with Romulus the talking dog and Louise Beavers -- live happily ever after. All of that romantic tragedy forgotten. Oh, and the United States survives for another decade or two ... until a neophyte goody-two-shoes politician from Illinois is elected president ... then all hell breaks loose.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

Syd

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:57 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

The Bishop's Wife, starring Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young is the kind of Christmas movie which can cause diabetes. Cary Grant plays Dudley, an angel who is sent to earth in response to a prayer by (Anglican) Bishop Henry Brougham. Henry thinks that Dudley's been sent to help him raise money for a new cathedral, but the movie's title telegraphs what he's really there for. Henry is much more devoted to building his cathedral than doing God's real work, and is neglecting his wife, and guess who's there to cheer her up. In the process, Dudley cures a historian who has writer's block (Monte Woolley, who I liked), tells Christmas stories to Henry's daughter, and teaches a cabby how to skate. Through all this, Grant twinkles until you start hoping he's a demon in hell in disguise. No such luck.

Amazingly, this picture was nominated for Best Picture and Director at the Oscars, so apparently there was a big demand for syrup that year. (The classic Miracle on 34th Street was also up for Best Picture, but I have no complaints about that one.)

Last edited by Syd on Thu Dec 24, 2015 9:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

yambu

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:12 am

Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 6441 Location: SF Bay Area

Caught Family Stone for the first time just now. Best Christmas movie ever.

Syd

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:45 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (aka simply The Little Chinese Seamstress is one of those slice-of-life Chinese movies, like The Road Home or Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles; this one, however, was not directed by Zhang Yimou but by Sijie Dai, and is based on his sem-autobiographical novel.

Most of the movie takes place in the early seventies, during the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, with city people from suspect families are being sent to the countryside to be "re-educated." Two of these are Luo (Kun Chen) , the son of a dentist, and Ma (Ye Liu), the son of doctors and a violinist. They are sent to learn how to carry manure to fields, dig mines, and tell movies to the peasants. Being young men, they are also on the lookout for the pretty local girls, and meet the beautiful Little Seamstress (apparently she has no name; the actress is Zhou Xun, who I liked so much in Perhaps Love; this is a few years earlier and she looks so young you think these lechers should be arrested.

Instead, the two fall in love with her, and learning that she is illiterate, determine to expose her to literature and learn to read. She's more attracted to Luo, although Ma is the one who shows the more strength of character. (Naturally, since he's based on the author.)

The movie is often pretty funny (including an impromptu dentist's drill that has to be seen to be believed), and generally pleasant, and the effects of exposing the mind of a young woman with seemingly limited prospects to Balzac, Flaubert and Dumas is even more liberating than I expected. Mostly, this is a quiet pastoral movie in which not that much happens for a while. Part of the humor is the absurdity of the Cultural Revolution (for instance, cookbooks are bourgeois), but that's also dark because reading these books is subversive and counterrevolutionary. The omnipresence of Chairman Mao's photograph almost becomes a running joke.

At one point, the movie takes an awkward and confusing jump twenty years ahead in time, contrasting the rather static life of the 1970s countryside to the vibrant life of modern Shanghai.

Spoilers: The Three Gorges Dam is being built and the countryside where Ma was re-educated is to be flooded. And finally what became of the beloved little seamstress? Good question. We know what happened in the 1970s, but after? I don't think Sijie Dai knows himself.
End spoilers

This movie covers some of the same territory as the pleasant The Road Home and part of the much more ambitious To Live. The time period is about the same as Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, but this movie lacks most of that one's bleakness. (I actively dislike Xiu Xiu.) It's interesting to see how Chinese movies look back critically on the Maoist era. And as near as I can tell, neither this nor The Road Home was banned in China.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

gromit

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:37 am

Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 9010 Location: Shanghai

Syd wrote:

This movie covers some of the same territory as the pleasant The Road Home and part of the much more ambitious To Live. The time period is about the same as Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, but this movie lacks most of that one's bleakness. (I actively dislike Xiu Xiu.) It's interesting to see how Chinese movies look back critically on the Maoist era. And as near as I can tell, neither this nor The Road Home was banned in China.

Well, it's fully acceptable to criticize the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. But unless I'm mistaken, there are very few criticisms of The Great Leap Forward or other Maoist follies. Deng XiaoPing came up with the concept that Chairman Mao made mistakes, and the formula that Mao was correct 70% of the time and 30% erred.

Denouncing the Cultural Revolution also allowed for the rehabilitation of Deng, and made way for the opening up policy. In Chinese Marxist terms, the imposition of collectivization was premature because China wasn't ready, not yet having gone through an industrial/capitalist phase. So essentially Deng just backed things up to the more appropriate historical stage of economic development -- "socialism with Chinese characteristics" aka gov't directed raw capitalism. This bit of sophistry elegantly leaves the communist party in place, because it's never too early to have the political levers in the hands of "the people" (read: the Party).

So dissing the Cult Rev is fine in moderation, criticizing other early party economic policies in theory is okay, but dicey because they don't want anything which undercuts the authority of the Party. Dealing with politics, the party, authority figures, etc. is dangerous territory -- and economic issues are always intertwined with politics (that after all is one of the key tenets of Marxism). Zhang YiMou had a tough time for a few years after he made The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) and To Live (1994), and finally just moved into large-scale martial-arts period dramas.

But of course, drop the politics and you get to stage the Olympic ceremonies. Anyway, I agree with you on Xiu Xiu, which seemed kind of amateurish and schematic, and rather uneven. To Live is quite a good film.

_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number.

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:35 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

yambu wrote:

Caught Family Stone for the first time just now. Best Christmas movie ever.

Thank you!!! Though I wouldn't go as far as you do (for me the 1947 Miracle on 34th Street will forever be hard to beat) I agree that The Family Stone is a great movie and criminally underrated.

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:33 am

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

billyweeds wrote:

mo--If there is one thing that is certain in my life besides death and taxes, it is that I will never ever watch even one single frame of either version of Funny Games. You can tell me, and anyone else can tell me, that it's artistic. But I will not spend one nanosecond of my life watching a movie which I already know will make me nauseous and give me nightmares.

No one ever asked you to watch it! The last sentence of my post was meant as a caveat. This is what I wrote: "BTW, I remember that a lot of people were really turned off by the violence in this film...but that's not what I'm asking about."

Could I have been anymore clear?

I would never dream of _telling_ you (or anyone else) that it's "artistic." Or even to watch it! That has absolutely NOTHING to do with my question. I asked a technical question about the 2 versions, PERIOD. If you don't like my post, please just ignore it.

The editorializing is unnecessary and upsetting to me. I have enough antagonism in my life already.

I'm well aware about how you feel about the movie(s). I've read your remarks on FG before. No need to bring them up again.

Last edited by mo_flixx on Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:40 am; edited 1 time in total

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:36 am

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

lady wakasa wrote:

mo_flixx wrote:

For example, a movie with mostly talking heads wouldn't do it for me no matter how brilliant the script or how good the acting.

Just curious... then you don't really like, say, Ken Burns documentaries? Or is that a different animal?

Krikey!! I was speaking of _narrative_ films, NOT documentaries.

I pay very little att'n. to visual style in a documentary. Errol Morris is one exception of course.

The current doc. "Trouble in Water" about Katrina is a perfect example of primitive footage in a powerful film.

lady wakasa

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:29 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon

mo_flixx wrote:

lady wakasa wrote:

mo_flixx wrote:

For example, a movie with mostly talking heads wouldn't do it for me no matter how brilliant the script or how good the acting.

Just curious... then you don't really like, say, Ken Burns documentaries? Or is that a different animal?

Which is why I asked - for clarification. I was trying to think of examples of "talking head" movies, and nothing much came up beyond Ken Burns. There's that movie from a couple years back which takes place in a hotel room (can't remember the name); it's not quite talking head, but it's pretty restrictive in it's locations.

I've heard about, but have seen no footage of, Trouble the Water. I should see if it's (still) kicking around NYC, although I haven't been up there much lately.

What about The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeiosie? A good chunk of that is them sitting down trying (!) to have dinner.

Just trying to understand your perspective - not attack you for it.

_________________
===================
http://www.wakasaworld.com

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:51 am

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

lady wakasa wrote:

mo_flixx wrote:

lady wakasa wrote:

mo_flixx wrote:

For example, a movie with mostly talking heads wouldn't do it for me no matter how brilliant the script or how good the acting.

Just curious... then you don't really like, say, Ken Burns documentaries? Or is that a different animal?

No problem. I'm still smarting from the "Funny Games" 'editorial.'

I haven't seen TDCOTB by Bunuel since it came out. My favorite film of his from that era was "Belle de Jour." The later ones didn't do a lot for me...but at the same time, I'm an auteurist (tho' have become less of one over the years) -- so I tend to admire a director for his body of work.

Bunuel's Mexican B & W films of the '50's have superb visuals -- so I'd probably take that into account.

Both Ozu and Warhol have peculiar visuals. Ozu keeps the camera at tatami mat level a lot. Warhol would use a single set-up for a film lasting hours. I don't fault that because it's a style itself.
---------------
Examples of personal visuals:

Anthony Mann employs a lot of diagonal compositions in his famous Stewart westerns. Nicholas Ray uses the color red dramatically (not just James Dean's red jkt. from "Rebel") in his films.

Nonstop "Quantum of Solace" montage doesn't impress me. That kind of thing loses its impact if it's continued thru an entire film.

I'm fascinated by Preminger who reputedly never used P.O.V. shots - tho' I finally saw one or two at the last noir fest. in Sta. Fe. Howard Hawks has a way of shooting so you know the geography of the room/set - and his medium shots are always unmistakable.

John Ford infused his late color films with golden lighting for certain scenes...this was long before filmmakers started using sepia to denote the past (which is almost a cliche' now).

As they say -- a picture is worth a thousand words. It is to me, anyway.

Last edited by mo_flixx on Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:58 am; edited 2 times in total

Syd

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:51 am

Site Admin Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 12921 Location: Norman, Oklahoma

gromit: I hadn't noticed the paucity of films that criticize The Great Leap Forward, but now that I think of it, the only one that comes to mind is the same To Live, which is scathing about many of the major events of the Mao years, including the civil war and the revolution itself.

_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament

billyweeds

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:39 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 20618 Location: New York City

mo--You can believe me or not as you wish, but I had not one iota of antagonism toward you in my post about Funny Games. I had a lot of antagonism toward the director and even Naomi Watts, who basically gave that immoral piece of sludge the green light. You...how can I say this?...sometimes take things too personally.

mo_flixx

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:38 pm

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

billyweeds wrote:

Yeah...it's true. But I remembered how you felt about the movie and was hoping to avoid going 'there.'

bocce

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:06 pm

Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 2428

saw THE ILLUSIONIST the other day on the tube and can't help but remark how superior it was to the concurrently released and massively overpraised THE PRESTIGE...

now, don't get me wrong, i liked THE PRESTIGE, it's just that the other so outdistances it in story line and acting and, well, EVERYTHING, as to be no contest...

marantzo

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:37 pm

Guest

bocce wrote:

A number of us, myself included, had said the same thing when they were current. Far superior indeed.

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