“Bride of Frankenstein,”  while technically a sequel, bears so little resemblance to the first Frankenstein movie that it almost belongs in a different genre.   While “Frankenstein” was chilling, sombre, scary, and only funny by accident,  “Bride” is both campy and humorous, philosophical and sentimental, daring and shocking and bizarre.   And not really scary at all.   Director James Whale resisted making a sequel, and when the money got to be too much to resist, he insisted on complete creative control, which he got, and then proceeded to throw the kitchen sink at the screen.  If the theme of the original movie was “when man tinkers with the source of life, terrible things result”   the theme of the second must be considered “when man tinkers with the source of life, just about any crazy thing is bound to happen.”    It’s amazing that “Bride” works as a film at all;  it’s a miracle that it works as well as it does.   It veers from comedy to horror to melancholy and back again in the blink of an eye, introduces absolutely unbelievable but entertaining characters at every turn, and is a real hoot to watch.   And underneath all that run powerful themes of loneliness and alienation.  Which is why it’s often considered one of the best horror films ever created, despite its complete lack of anything even remotely frightening.

The weird thing is, despite the movie poster’s proclamation that the Bride of Frankenstein is “..more fearful than the monster himself!”  the movie isn’t really about the bride at all.   She has an extremely short life – she is brought to life in the final ten minutes of the film; enough time for her to see the Monster, scream in terror, and then die as he flies into a rage and tears down the laboratory on top of them all.   Instead, it’s really about the coming of age of the Monster — a giant child in the first, he learns to talk in the second, and to make friends, and then, finally, to long for companionship and thus demand a bride.   Really, he’s maturing pretty quickly, all things considered.   Give him time, and he might become a decent human being.   Alas, time is not on his side.  This is a horror movie, after all.

James Whale was one of the few openly gay men in Hollywood, and that must’ve been a lonely life.    Some scholars and movie historians have written page upon page about the homosexual themes in the movie, but I think they mostly miss the point.   There are plenty of sex jokes and double entendres, but I don’t think Whale ever intended us to see the hermit and the Monster living as a gay couple, for instance, or Frankenstein and Pretorius and gay men procreating when they make the Bride.   However, outsiders abound in “Bride of Frankenstein.”   Of course there is the Monster, who’s just looking for someone to be nice to him, but also the gypsies (historically outsiders,)  the hermit, who has chosen a life away from society for religious reasons, and Pretorius, who has made a choice just like the hermit’s, but for opposite religious reasons (ie, he can’t stand the rules and restrictions of religious people.)  It’s not about being gay; it’s about being lonely, which was certainly part and parcel with being gay in Hollywood in the ’30s.

“Bride of Frankenstein” opens on a group of friends, telling each other stories on a rainy night.  Remember the unnecessary opening on the first one, with whatisface smugly telling us that if we didn’t like scary movies, “well, we warned you?”   This one does its best to top that, introducing Mary Shelly, her husband, and Lord Byron.   The actress who plays Mary Shelley here at the beginning, Elsa Lanchester, will also play the Bride at the end of the movie.   What does it mean that Mary Shelley conceives of herself as her own Monster’s bride?   Decide for yourself.   And off we go…

Minnie

After that mostly unnecessary prologue, we return to the scene of the burning windmill, the last place we saw the Monster.   We are introduced to Minnie, played with cackling delight and great comic timing by Una O’Connor. She wasn’t in the last movie, but will be the comic relief in this one- a role filled, last time around, by the elder Baron Frankenstein. I don’t know why he’s not back, as he was great, but Minnie’s even better.

Horror Movie Lesson #1 – Nobody ever dies in a burning building.  In fact, if you suddenly find yourself transported into the body of a monster in a horror movie, get yourself inside a building quick and set it on fire.  It’s the safest place you could possibly be.    After the crowd disperses, Hans – father of Maria the flower child – finds the Monster underneath the windmill in a subterranean pool, but doesn’t live to tell about it.   Neither does his wife, who reaches down to grab her husband’s hand, only to find she is holding the hand of the Monster.   A creepy owl looks on.

The mob takes Henry back to Elizabeth (played this time by Valerie Hobson, who doesn’t look a thing like Mae Clarke.)   Everybody thinks he’s dead until he wakes up, and Minnie shrieks, “He’s alive!”   Apparently no one knows how to take a pulse.   Henry’s not quite feeling himself, but still hasn’t learned his lesson.

–

Elizabeth’s not quite well either, it seems.

Enter Dr. Pretorius, played by Ernest Thesinger.   Vincent Price must have studied this performance every day of his acting career.      It takes a special guy to seek out a mad scientist who has just invented a monster that terrorized the village, and offer to partner with him in another “creative” endeavour, but Dr. Pretorius is that guy.   He is tall and skinny,  with wild hair and an effeminate manner.  This is the definition  of “camp,”  and it doesn’t take long to guess that Pretorious is a  coded homosexual.   He convinces — practically blackmails – Dr.  Frankenstein into continuing his experiments, and promises him  that he has some interesting things to show him.      Frankenstein’s curiosity overwhelms him, of course, and off we  go.

It’s interesting to note the change in Dr. F from the last film to this one.   In “Frankenstein,”  he is drunk with power, mad, obsessed with the possibilities of creating life on his own.   Here, he is hesitant, afraid, cajoled into further experiments – and later, forced by the Monster to do what he refuses to do.   He has gone from being our villain to being simply caught up in forces already in motion — doomed to play the role he has unwittingly chosen for himself until the drama is played out.   The Monster, ostensibly the villain of the first film, was transformed into a character we cared for; here, the same process begins for the Doctor.

What follows next is the most ridiculous, campy scene in the movie.   Dr. Praetorius takes Dr. F to his lab, and shows him that he has managed to create miniatures – homonculi, little people who sing and dance, dress in fancy clothes, fall in love, and protest moral outrages — all with brains smaller than walnuts.  Frankenstein’s monster merely stumbles around and moans.   And yet Praetorius insists that Frankenstein’s achievement is the greater one.  Apparently size does matter.

–

Praetorius is clearly evil where Frankenstein is simply mad -  he shows great contempt for religion, morals, good and evil, anything that might stand in the way of him achieving his goals.   He makes Dr. F look like a babe in the woods, and preys on his innocence.

Cut to the Monster, stumbling through the woods.  He happens upon a pool, where he rages against his own reflection.  (I told you it got all philosophical.)   Little Bo Peep appears, and when she sees the Monster, she screams and falls into the pool.   Clumsy Bo Peep.   In a stunning reversal of the flower girl scene in the first movie, the Monster jumps in and saves her, but she won’t stop screaming.

Some hunters hear her, and unload some lead into the Monster, wounding him but not slowing him down much.  But now the town knows again that the Monster is alive.   So out come the pitchforks and again.   They manage to capture him, the

Burgomaster barking orders and complaining, “I get no cooperation — no cooperation at all!”  and being hassled, of course, by Minnie, who offers to help bind the Monster, all 98 pounds of her.   But they manage to get him tied up without her help, and, to be honest, he looks an awful lot like Christ on the cross.  (Film historian Scott McQueen notes the reversal of traditional religious narrative occuring here — Christ was crucified, then resurrected; the Monster was resurrected, then crucified.

They haul him off to jail, and manage to hold him there for about five minutes.   He rages through town, managing to kill a little girl named Frida and both Herr and Frau Neuman.   The body count is piling up – the Monster might still be a tragically misunderstood character, but one can’t argue that he’s an innocent one.   He has little value for human life; it would follow, I guess, from his own beginning, that he has little understanding of what human life is.    Perhaps he thinks the people he kills can simply be put back on the laboratory table, zapped with lightning, and brought back to life.

The Monster makes his way out of town – he must have slipped away while everyone was running and screaming – and is drawn to the smell of meat cooking on a gypsy campfire.  Now here is an odd scene, with no apparent purpose.    He scares them away, but doesn’t take the meat, and then hears sweet and heavenly music – being played by a hermit on a violin.   The hermit is blind, and so doesn’t know his

Regardless of whether it’s through ignorance or enlightenment, the two of them get along happily.   And – gasp! – the hermit teaches the Monster to talk – and to smoke.    (This is one of the scenes that people like to mention when they talk about homosexual undertones in this movie, but I think it’s a stretch.   It would be pretty easy to include double entendres and other latently sexual language an imagery into the scene, but it’s just not there.   Instead, the hermit prays to God, and there is a crucifix on the wall.   And besides, if these two men were happily enjoying a homosexual relationship, why would the Monster go in search of a bride?)

But, alas, the outside world must intrude, in the form of two lost hunters who recognize the Monster and attempt to shoot him.  In the struggle, the hermit’s cabin catches on fire, the hunters help the blind hermit out, and leave, apparently assuming, once again, that burning buliding=dead monster (see Horror Rule #1)

And now the Monster is mad again, burned and abandoned.   The mob chases him into a graveyard, where he hides in a tomb, only to encounter Praetorius and Fritz robbing graves.   They uncover a 19 year old girl – “Pretty little thing in her way, wasn’t she?”   Fritz whines.   “I hope her bones are firm!”  Praetorius answers, a gleam in his eyes.

The Monster follows Praetorius back to his laboratory and approaches him, perhaps mistaking the austerity of this tomblike lab for another hermit’s residence.   (Interesting to contrast the hermit’s existence away from “the world” with that of Praetorius.)  Praetorius is not frightened, and offers him a smoke and some food.

–

Notice the Monster’s expanded vocabulary and morbid leanings.   Notice the way Pretorius sizes him up, with a certain…lust in his eyes.   The Monster is putty in the evil scientist’s hands.   Interpret that however you choose.

Now it’s time to get down to business.  The rest of the movie proceeds along at a much quicker pace, and with a new urgency and grim tone.   Pretorius visits Henry again, and Elizabeth tells him off royally.   But Henry looks weak and tempted once she leaves (if there are homosexual undertones, here they are.)  When Henry refuses, all sweaty and trembling, Praetorius brings the Monster into the room.    He insists that Dr. F make him a bride.  Henry refuses to even talk about it with him there, and the Monster leaves – to find Elizabeth’s window.   If Henry won’t give him a bride, then he’ll take Henry’s.   Here we get the best horror screams in the movie – first from Elizabeth, and then from Minnie.

Pretorius takes control of the scene before the mob with the pitchforks are brought in .   “I charge you,”  he says, “as you value your mistress’s life, to do nothing and say nothing of this episode.  I assure you the Baroness will be safely returned if you leave everything to me.   Nothing, that is, except what HE demands…”

The Monster has taken Elizabeth to a cave in the mountains, and Henry can’t find her, so he agrees to cooperate with Pretorius.   They take Pratorius’s experiment to Henry’s lab, and hook “her” up to the same machines that brought the Monster to life.   Praetorius keeps on about good and evil, evolution

"It was a very fresh one!"

and morality, but Henry has a job to do.    Their heart is defective (clears throat) so they send Karl (played by Dwight Frye; his name was Fritz in the last movie) to get another one.   But instead of going to the hospital, he just goes and finds a young maiden in the street and murders her.   “It was a very fresh one,”  he tells Henry, when he brings it back to the lab.

Henry’s having trouble, but the Monster’s not interested.  “Work!  Work!…Then sleep!”  he demands.  And so Henry does.   Pretorius lures the Monster away with a drugged beverage… there’s definitely a bit of the child molester in this guy.    Also quite a bit of genius – apparently he’s invented a wireless telephone way ahead of A.G.  Bell.   Too bad Praetorius isn’t interested in getting rich… the money might’ve distracted him from his darker impulses.   Instead, they reign supreme, and the storm moves in that will bring to life the second Frankenstein Monster.

A lot more money has gone into creating the lab this time around — – many more sparks and buzzes, zaps and smoky explosions – but the scene pretty much mirrors the one in the first movie.   A bandaged body is raised into the storm, and then lowered.  The Bride blinks her eyes.   Then we cut so that her hair can emerge from the bandages.   She moves like a bird; all jerky and nervous.

And here is the scene that always gets me, and proves to me that Boris Karloff is an actor, not just a guy in a monster suit.

–

I feel so sorry for him…his one last effort to find a partner, a companion in a cruel world has failed miserably.   There is nothing left but death.

Elizabeth arrives (did she escape?) and the Monster allows Henry to leave with her – they are paired, they can be happy.   But he forces Pretorius – the loner – to stay, and then burns the laboratory down around them.  The message is clear: loners die. Couples live.

The Frankenstein franchise would continue on after “Bride,”  but never reach the same heights again.   The next, “Ghost of Frankenstein” is a perfectly good little movie, introducing Bela Lugosi as Igor.   After that, Karloff quit, Lon Chaney played the monster, and it just got worse and worse.   But for what it is, “Bride of Frankenstein” is an undisputed classic.

Universal was churning out horror pictures by the dozen in the thirties and forties, and quite a few of those films are really great – classics like “Phantom of the Opera,” “The Invisible Man,”  The Mummy” and “Werewolf of London.”   Still, “Frankenstein” really has to be considered the granddaddy of all the Universal horror flicks.  Along with “Dracula,” which was made the same year, it saved its studio financially, it generated four sequels, and a hundred knockoffs and gave us at least two of the most iconic characters in all of the horror genre.   

“Frankenstein” is based on Mary Shelley’s Victorian novel, but let’s get this out of the way up front — while the movies and the book share some plot points, thematically they’re worlds apart.   In fact, almost opposite.    Shelley’s novel, in true Romantic spirit, is a metaphor for man’s relationship to his Creator — she uses her Monster, who is articulate and intelligent, to challenge his creator’s right to create him and send him into the world.    Shelley was, through a complicated metaphor, shaking her fist at God.   The Frankenstein movies, on the other hand, pay extreme reverence to God, essentially declaring Him the only one who has the right to create life.   Dr. Frankenstein’s fatal flaw is pride – he tries to be like God, strives to know what that feels like.  To put it simply, Shelley’s novel is about the pride of God; the movie is about the pride of Man.   Thematically, it’s a huge difference, so let’s put the book to bed right now.   It doesn’t have that much to do with the movies, anyway.  

Boris Karloff, who plays the Monster, was an unknown actor coming into “Frankenstein,”  and isn’t even listed in the opening credits — instead, there’s a question mark after “The Monster.”    Of course now he’s famous for this role, but really it’s the makeup and costume artist who should be given credit for creating the Monster.  Karloff mostly just stumbles around and moans.   It’s not a great performance, it just looks great.    

The movie opens, curiously, with Edward Van Sloan telling us that this is a scary movie, and if you don’t want to be scared, you should probably leave.   Thanks for that.   Really, you could chop the first and last scene off of “Frankenstein” and lose absolutely nothing of consequence.   

And if you did that, “Frankenstein” would open in a graveyard, and one of the first things we would see is Dwight Frye’s mad, frenzied, gleeful face.    Combined with his similar performance as Renfeld in “Dracula,”  Dwight Frye made an indelible mark on horror, as the grovelling, deformed,sycophant assistant.   He should be in the horror Hall of Fame.  Because of him, it’s almost impossible to introduce a mad scientist without introducing his Igor as well.   Funny thing is, his name’s not Igor.  It’s actually Fritz.   There’s no “Igor” in the Frankenstein series until Son of Frankenstein.  

Fritz and Dr. Frankenstein are robbing a grave, just minutes after the body’s been put in the ground.   One wonders what they do about the embalming fluid.  In the process, Frankenstein throws a shovelful of dirt into the face of a Grim Reaper statue (or cutout?) just behind him.   I can’t say “Frankenstein” is exactly rich with symbolism, but that moment’s pretty obviously symbolic.  

Colin Clive plays the Doctor, and he excels at giving off the aura of a guy who might be a genius, but might be insane.   He’s all glistening forehead, carefully combed cowlick, and wild eyes.   It’s important that we have some sympathy for Dr. Frankenstein -that we see him as both the hero and the villian in this story – or else not much of the third act matters.   Clive gets the job done impressively.  

Now we see Fritz peering in the window of a science classroom, and we’re reminded of the graveyard.   Edward Van Sloan, who was such a thudding bore as Van Helsing in “Dracula,”  is the professor, which makes me glad I’m not taking that class.   He is presenting on the differences between a criminal brain and a normal one.  (If I’m ever on trial, I’m calling this guy to the stand.   “It’s not his fault, really it’s just that his brain is too small.”)  Fritz intends to steal the normal one, but a gong sounds (out of nowhere) and surprised him and he drops it.   So he takes the criminal one instead.   This is odd to me, because when the Monster does come to life, the movie goes to great lengths to convince us he’s a nice guy, really, just feared, misunderstood, and prone to tragic mistakes.  He shows no signs of having an particularly “criminal” mind.   

Cut to the love triangle.   We meet Elizabeth of the Flowing Lace Gowns, who is receiving alarming letters from Frankenstein, all the while planning to marry him.   She confides in Victor, who is clearly, clumsily in love with her.   You can’t help but think that Victor wouldn’t mind if Henry did in fact go insane.  A portrait of Henry sits on the piano, between long, lit candles; a nice framing device of this troubling triangle.   Frankenstein sequels and knockoffs and repackages have been done to death, but nobody’s ever bothered to tell the story of poor Victor.   That’s a movie I’d like to see.  

Victor and Elizabeth travel to wherever Henry is and visit his old professor – the one in the brain scene.   Together they make the journey up to Frankenstein’s laboratory, a spooky– and German Expressionist –looking place if I ever saw one.  

 Inside their laboratory are Fritz and Frankenstein, surrounded by all kinds of crazy looking equipment.   I was reminded of the Pit of Despair in Princess Bride.  They are interrupted by Elizabeth, Victor, and the Professor.   Fritz tries to send them away, but then Henry sees his fiancee standing out there, and can’t exactly leave her standing in the rain.   So they become spectators to his big experiment.  “Crazy am I?   We’ll see whether I’m crazy or not…come on up!”   

–  

 
Elizabeth and Victor return to Chateau Frankenstein, which is a pretty cozy and comfortable sort of place (it will become quit different in later films.)  We meet Baron Frankenstein, Henry’s father who, in his smoking jacket and ridiculous hat, provides the comic relief for the film.  He is all blustery and full of nonsense, and does not like the Burgermaster at all.   “Nothing the Burgermaster can say can be of the slightest importance.”    Everyone is concerned about the delayed wedding between Liz and Henry, and Baron Frankenstein is convinced there’s another woman.   If only.  

Meanwhile, Dr. Waldman tries to convince Frankenstein that what he’s doing is dangerous.   And so we get Henry’s Manifesto:  “Have you never wanted to do something that was dangerous?   Where should we be if nobody tried to find out what lies beyond?  Have you never wanted to look beyond the clouds, and the stars?  Or to know what causes the trees to bud, and what changes the darkness into light?   But if you talk like that, people call you crazy.  Well, if I could discover just one of these things….what eternity is for example…I wouldn’t care if they did call me crazy.”  

The Monster approaches as the two men are discussing its fate.   This is our first sighting of it, unwrapped anyway, and it’s curiously staged:  we hear heavy footsteps, and then the monster backs through a doorway and slowly turns around.  We see his size and heft before we see his face.  Then we cut closer to his face, and then closer again, horrifyingly close.   I should note that “Frankenstein” has no score; everything plays out in relative silence.   This scene in particular is memorable for the lack of your standard horror movie soundtrack (think “Jaws”) behind the monster’s introduction.   

–

But things go bad when Fritz turns up with a torch, and the Monster has to be sedated, then put in chains.   Fritz torments him with a whip and the torch, until the Monster gets angry enough to break his chains and kill him.  There’s a lesson in her about how you make a monster — not on a laboratory table with lightning and instruments, but in a dungeon with chains and a whip.   

The Baron, Liz and Vic show up just as the two doctors get the monster under control again, and determine to take poor Henry home at once.   He leaves the Monster in Waldman’s hands, who promises to destroy it immediately.   He doesn’t.  He decides to conduct a few experiments of his own, and the Monster wakes up while he’s got him on the table.    He kills the dishonest doctor and escapes.  

Wedding plans are under way back at Chateau Frankenstein, with poor Victor smiling alongside.  The Baron is clearly in his element, throwing parties, toasting the House of Frankenstein, making speeches to the commoners, decked out in their liederhosen.   

Either the Monster has an incredible sense of navigation or Henry’s experiments weren’t as far removed from home as we’d been led to believe, because just outside of town, he shows up.   In perhaps the most famous and memorable scene in the movie, he makes a terrible mistake that seals his fate.   

–

Elizabeth, in full wedding regalia (including a fifteen foot train) expresses her worries and premonitions to Henry.   “Something is coming between us…I know it.  I know it!”   Apparently no one told her that it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding… and that she shouldn’t have to wear all that cumbersome stuff any longer than absolutely necessary.   Henry feigns ignorance that anything could possibly be wrong,  until he hears those old familiar moans and decides the Monster’s in the house.   His ears must be playing tricks on him though, because he thinks he hears the moans coming from the cellar when they’re actually coming from the roof.  

The Monster enters Liz’s bedroom through a window (in a scene reminiscent of “Nosferatu”) and, like any good Victorian heroine, Elizabeth promptly screams, then faints.   So the Monster leaves.   Apparently he just wanted someone to talk to.   

The father of the drowned girl, in a daze, brings her to town, to lay at the burgermaster’s feet.   This is a superbly directed scene; the camera stays on him in a continuous pan for a good 40 seconds, as he passes celebrating peasants who turn into wailing peasants.   It’s probably the longest continuous camera shot in the movie.  The father’s expression never changes, and we, who know how innocent the Monster is, are forced to reflect on the terrible thing he’s done.   The change in the townsfolk – from celebration to mourning to anger – mirrors that of Dr. Frankenstein himself — from “It’s Alive!”  to “What have I done?”  to “It must be destroyed.”   

Now the townspeople are up in arms and Dr. Frankenstein is wracked with guilt.  “There can be no wedding while this horrible creation of mine is still alive.  I made him with these hands, and with these hands I’ll destroy him!”  Then he leaves Liz in Victor’s care, who, once again, must be feeling terribly conflicted.  Poor guy.     

They set out, complete with hounds and torches, to find the Monster.   Henry, for some unknown reason essential to the plot, gets himself separated from everyone els, and finds the Monster hiding behind a rock.    The Monster doesn’t seem too afraid of the torch this time, and in fact, during the action scene, the Doctor almost catches himself on fire.   Thank God for fireproof costumes and quick-thinking stunt men.   The Monster knocks him silly and then drags him into an old windmill; it bears a striking resemblance to the Laboratory, but you’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s on purpose or just economy of production.  Either way, the townspeople see him, and swarm the old structure.   Henry wakes up and there is a struggle, ending with the Monster throwing him from the top of the windmill; he bounces off one of the blades and hits the ground with a thud.  It’s amazing he’s not dead, but then I guess there wouldn’t be a sequel.    The townspeople set fire to the windmill, and the Monster (in what is clearly Karloff’s finest scene) screams and writhes and it burns down around him.   We pull away to a really fine distance shot of the burning windmill, and that really should be the end.   

But it isn’t.   Apparently, test audiences didn’t like the film ending on such a terrifying note.    So instead, we get a completely superfluous scene involving Baron Frankenstein, a bunch of maids, and a glass of his grandmother’s wine.   And the final line of the film:  “Here’s to a son for the House of Frankenstein.”  

In the end, “Frankenstein” is really more about how fear, misunderstanding and abuse can turn even a gentle soul into a monster.   Frankenstein’s pride and genius created a human being; it was his ignorance about what to do with that human being once it was created that made it into a monster.   Baron Frankenstein hopes for a son; we, the wise audience, must hope that Henry learns a few things about child-rearing before that happens.   

I don’t say this very often, but “King Kong” was a good 50 years ahead of its time. Nowadays, with the impressive feats achieved by Computer Generated Images (CGI,) it looks old, dated, and fake. Peter Jackson’s King Kong, I’ll admit, is superior in just about every way. But stop and think for a second about monster movies. Now take out all the monster movies in which the monsters are just men in costumes (from Wolfman to Leatherface to Alien.) What are you left with? Kong. And Godzilla, and the Blob, and Them. And then, with the advent of CGI, Jurassic Park, and a hundred and one movies like it. But from 1933 to 1993, the visuals in King Kong were unbeatable. Nothing even came close. Yes, Godzilla stumbled through towns breathing fire, and those ants were freaky, but Kong wrestled with a T-Rex and climbed the Empire State Building. Godzilla’s emotional range was pretty much rage and anger; Kong expresses these, plus tenderness, frustration, wonder, sadness, and bravado. In a medium that was constantly changing, especially in technical ways, Kong stayed King for sixty years. That’s a long time.

]]> http://www.gonnawatchit.com/2008/11/02/king-kong-classic-movie-series-9/feed/ 0 http://www.gonnawatchit.com/2008/09/23/duck-soup-classic-movie-series-8/ http://www.gonnawatchit.com/2008/09/23/duck-soup-classic-movie-series-8/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:27:38 +0000 gonnawatchit http://gonnawatchit.wordpress.com/?p=192 “Duck Soup” isn’t about anything, let alone a soup made with duck.   There’s a plot, it’s true, but it really doesn’t matter; it’s just a premise that allows the Marx Brothers to string one routine after another.    Actually what makes “Duck Soup” stand out among all the Marx Brothers titles is just how much the plot doesn’t matter.   There’s less time between gags here, less time spend on boring and unnecessary things like characterization, dramatic tension, climax, and resolution.  To paraphrase I don’t know who, it’s just one darned thing after another.   And it’s glorious that way.
But since you ask, here you go:   Groucho is Rufus T. Firefly, who, for some unknown reason, is made the leader of the small country of Freedonia.   Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Silvania.   Zeppo is Firefly’s secretary, though he hardly gets any screen time at all – in one scene in particular, even while he’s talking, the camera is on Groucho.   No wonder Zeppo quit after “Duck Soup” came out.   There is some attempt on the part of the actors who aren’t the Marx Brothers to keep up the pretense that they’re making a normal movie, you know, with a plot and characters and everything, but their persistence just makes the chaos named Marx that much funnier.   During the war scenes, Groucho wears a different uniform in almost ever seen.   And one minute Chico is in chains as a spy; the next, he’s Groucho’s War Minister.   And then they all burst into song.   Which is another thing; there seems to be a feeble attempt to make “Duck Soup” a musical; it opens with a musical number, and climaxes with another one.   But in between, that’s forgotten about.   This is a Marx Brothers movie.   There is no other kind of movie at all like it.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tj_hEmrKRA]
The Marx Brothers carry a movie better than most sideshow comedians because their comedy spans the range of comedic possibility.   Groucho is all about wisecracks and double entendres; it’s amazing the things he got away with saying in 1931.   But just when the cigar and sidelong glance starts to wear thin, here come Chico and Harpo with a classic clown/pantomime act.   Harpo keeps pulling things out of his pockets, most often a pair of oversized scissors, but also any assortment of bells, horns, whistles, and, well, whatever visual gag is necessary at the moment.  And then when their routine starts to get thin, here comes Groucho again… this could go on forever.   I’d never get tired of it.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrwHRxqlvro]
I suppose you could see “Duck Soup” as a satire of politics, government, diplomacy, and war.   Apparently it wasn’t a hit when it came out because audiences felt it went too far, making fun of the country’s leaders.   But for a movie to really satirize a subject, it has to observe it first.   We have to see truth in the comedy, and laugh while it hurts.    I can’t find that in “Duck Soup.”   The political situation is just that –a situation.   It’s a stage, a premise, a place to tell – or play- a joke.  Mussolini thought it was terribly disrespectful, and banned “Duck Soup” from Italy.   I’m sure the Marx Brothers would’ve returned the favor, and happily banned Italy from “Duck Soup.”
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oREe_pseM-w]

Is it great because it’s important? Not so much.   It’s hard to find much influence on modern comedy here, sad to say.   The Marx Brothers brought what worked on the stage into the movies, but it didn’t really last in the movies for long.   Every now and then, Woody Allen seems to be influenced by them.

Is it great because it’s fun to watch? Oh, absolutely.   It may not be much like modern comedy, but I’ll take “Duck Soup”  over most modern comedies in a heartbeat.   It’s a joy to watch.

The single greatest romantic comedy ever made starred a man with a wooden leg and a woman who spoke like Elmer Fudd. Their disabilities were overcome by the effortless, immaculately stylish direction of one of the most famous and powerful directors in Hollywood – Ernst Lubitsch.

Never heard of him? Not surprised. For some reason he’s fallen out of style, while self-proclaimed imitators like Frank Capra and Billy Wilder (great directors, both) are remembered instead. According to legend, Wilder had a sign above the door of his office that read, “How would Lubitsch write it?” In Hollywood around 1930, everyone was talking about the “Lubitsch touch.”

What is the Lubitsch touch? The definitions are as numerous as the critics who write about it. But the general consensus is that it’s about effortless elegance, a sort of champagne effervescence that is found in every scene of a Lubitsch movie. Consider the obstacles Lubitsch overcame in making “Trouble in Paradise.” Herbert Marshall’s mannerisms and vocal talent are the epitome of masculine elegance, but he lost his leg in World War I and wore a wooden prosthetic, and thereafter walked with a (barely perceptible) limp. But you’ll never see the limp in “Trouble,” no matter how closely you’ll watch. Instead, you’ll see Lubitsch’s ingenious editing – whenever Marshall moves across a room, you never see him walk. The camera never pans as he moves. You see a step, and then a cut to where he’s going(the bed, the desk, wherever,) and then he enters the frame. The impeccable style of Lubitsch’s scenery replaces the troublesome gait of an otherwise impeccably styled actor. That’s the Lubitsch touch.

And Miss Kay Francis? She was known around Hollywood as the “wavishing Kay Fwancis,” due to a certain speech impediment. Hardly the dialect of a breathtakingly beautiful, achingly elegant French perfume millionaire. So Lubitsch wrote her scenes around her, leaving out difficult R words. There’s only one scene in which I’m able to detect her impediment. Otherwise, It’s simply written out of the movie. That’s the Lubitsch touch.

“Trouble in Paradise” is a movie about a love triangle – two criminals and the woman they are trying to rob. Herbert Marshall is the greatest thief in the world, but not above having his pockets picked by Miriam Hopkins. Kay Francis is a millionaire widow, but not above taking financial (and cosmetic) advice from a handsome stranger. It’s a truly legitimate love triangle, except that love never enters the equation. There are reasons Marshall could choose both women, and it’s not clear until the very end which he will choose. There may be even some debate between viewers about whether he made the right choice or not. How rare is that?

A spirit of cheerful cynicism pervades all of the characters; for these three, life is a game, and the only crime is taking it too seriously. The plot thickens along those lines; it’s just when one or two (or possibly all three) characters are on the verge of taking things too seriously that the tension builds. But Lubitsch perserves the tone; we escape the movie with that cynical, effervescent sensibility intact, and are happier for it. This is not a coming of age movie; nobody matures or changes their ways. This is comedy.
Ms. Francis’ two other suitors, played by Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everettt Horton, provide a counterpoint to the love triangle. Self-important, overly earnest men, devoid of style and not the slightest bit sexually interesting, they try to play the game, and fail, spectacularly. They are tiresome and dull, and in this champagne world, being dull is a much more serious crime than being a jewel thief.

“Trouble in Paradise” is a movie full of little, wonderful things far more than it is a movie about anything. The scenes play like exhibits in a museum show – yes, they are held together by a common theme, but that theme was really just an excuse to get all these beautiful tchotckes into one room. Watch the costumes. Watch the props and scene pieces, and the way Lubitsch uses them – the clocks and mirrors especially. Watch the way the scenes are edited, the way the cameras pan. Watch the minor characters –the butlers and waiters. Watch “Trouble in Paradise”more than once, and you’ll begin to see why this is a movie worth remembering.

Perhaps “Trouble in Paradise” and its masterful director have fallen from public attention because they are just too sauve, sophisticated and cynical for American taste. We are the land of the Wild Wild West, after all, and we want grit, and heart; blood, sweat and tears – all things terribly foreign to the world of the perfume widow and the jewel thief. We like Cary Grant, but we prefer Humphrey Bogart. Filmed in 1932 – the very pit of the Great Depression – perhaps it played for Americans of that era more as a dream, a realm of escape, a place where style was substance for a people who had lost everything but their sense of things. It quickly disappeared; in 1935, when the notorious Hayes production code gained enough muscle to start banning films, “Trouble in Paradise” was not approved for reissue, and disappeared until the demise of the Code in 1968. Even then, it wasn’t available on DVD until 2003, when Criterion released it, in their usual meticulously restored, richly featured fashion.

Is it great because it’s important?

Yes. As Jean Renoir once said, Lubitsch is responsible for “Modern Hollywood.” Movies for decades after would emulate the Lubitsch touch.

Is it great because it’s fun to watch?

You know, I didn’t think so on the first viewing. It felt too light and silly, a comedy of manners with no real substance. Then I watched it again, and its silliness looked like cynicism, and its lightness a great asset. Also, it’s one of those films that’s more fun the second time through, because once you know what’s going to happen in a scene, you can appreciate everything else about the scene. So yes, it’s fun to watch. But watch it more than once.

“Dracula” was a very successful Broadway play, starring Bela Lugosi, before it was ever a movie. But when Carl Laemmle Jr. bought the rights for Universal, he intended to cast Lon Chaney in the title part. Chaney, known as “The Man With A Thousand Faces,” was a certified horror hero and bankable star. But Chaney died of cancer just before filming was to begin, and director Tod Browning was left looking for another Dracula. Browning had no interest in Lugosi, perhaps because of his thick Hungarian accent. But Lugosi desperately wanted the chance and lobbied hard at Universal, until Browning had no choice but to cast him. And history was made.

Despite a plethora of remakes over the years, Lugosi’s Dracula is still the only Dracula. Lugosi created one of the most memorable characters in the long history of the movies, forever etched upon our collective consciousness. I don’t think many people in this century have actually seen “Dracula,” but everyone knows the character. Everyone can emulate his accent. Most of us have dressed up as Lugosi’s Dracula for Halloween. Heck, there’s even a Sesame Street character based on him. (Now that’s ubiquity.)

And he did it with minimal makeup or props, relying primarily on his accent and his eyes. It’s fascinating to imagine what kind of Dracula Lon Cheney might’ve invented if he’d had the chance; for certain, the Man of a Thousand Faces would’ve been heavily made up, and the vampire would’ve been far more grotesque to look at. The genius of Lugosi’s Dracula is that he carries his deformity inside of him; for all appearances, he is a good-looking, if slightly odd, aristocrat.

But Bela Lugosi is not the only actor to turn in a memorable, oft-imitated performance in “Dracula.” Dwight Frye plays Renfield, a weak-minded, insect-eating servant of the Count, and steals every scene he’s in. Surely here begins the countless minions of evil men, from Frankenstein’s Igor to Sauron’s Gollum. (If Andy Serkis didn’t study Dwight Frye’s performance here when preparing to play Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, I’ll be snookered.) His laugh is deeply creepy, he moves all hunkered down like a hurt animal, and his eyes dart wildly from face to face. He is almost more nightmarish than his master.

Unfortunately, Frye and Lugosi are the only great parts of this supposedly great movie. In the documentary “The Road to Dracula,” David Manners admits that he never actually saw director Tod Browning on the set, and took most of his instructions from cinematographer Karl Freund. Indeed, the movie plays like it’s being directed by a cinematographer. The opening act is wonderfully spooky, with the cobwebby castle, misty mountain passes, and ghoulish women. But once Count Dracula has been sufficiently introduced, the film has no idea what it ought to do with its villain. The second and third acts of the movie unfold predictably, unimaginatively, and with all the creative energy and tension of a wet dish towel.

The action moves to London. In a terribly composed scene (Lugosi stands a step below and behind Harker as he speaks with him, making him look awfully short) Count Dracula meets a whole set of uninteresting characters, including Jonathan and Mina Harker, and a girl named Lucy. Lucy finds the count intriguing and different, but before she can pursue him any further, he flies into her room and eats her. Then we meet Professor Van Helsing, Dracula’s nemesis, who is a thudding bore. Van Helsing learns that Dracula is a vampire, and deduces that he is after Mina next. So the dull professor sequesters her in a bedroom and surrounds her with a plant called wolfsbane. And waits. Really, if Dracula had half a brain in his head and would’ve just decided that there are plenty of other pretty young necks to bite, ones not herbally protected, I think Van Helsing and the Harkers would still be waiting in that big, stuffy house, because they don’t appear to have any other plan for stopping the vampire.

David Manners, who played Harker, and Helen Chandler, who was Mina, clearly did not think they were making a great and memorable film. Manners remembers the difficulty they had not ruining their lines by laughing. It must be hard to take your work seriously when you never lay eyes on the director of the film. Nonetheless, “Dracula” is and always will be remembered for one thing: Bela Lugosi’s performance. Those eyes, that accent, that hair, the cape….etched on our memories forever.

And to think he almost didn’t get the part.

Is it great because it’s important? Yes, important because of Lugosi’s performance, and to a lesser degree, Frye’s as well.

Is it great because it’s a good movie? Oh hell no. Those two performances are all that make this trainwreck of a movie watchable at all.

For my generation, it’s kind of hard to believe that the Nazis ever really existed.   They have been used as villains so often and so well in so many movies, books, cartoons, TV shows, and comedy routines, they just seem like a stereotype, a mythology more than a reality.   They’re like Darth Vader; they embody evil to such a degree that they seem to have been borrowed from a different universe, the one of fiction and mythology.

But of course they did really exist, and by all accounts, they were every bit as evil as they are portrayed in the movies.   Maybe even more so.     But the question, in my mind at least, still remains:  how could they have existed?   How could such an evil genius as Adolf Hitler have come to power, especially in a place as modern as 20th century Western Europe?   Sociopaths usually end up in prison, not in power, and that’s one of the comforting tendencies of modern governments – we generally manage to keep the pathological, the sadistic, and the insane out of office.   So how in the world did Germany – historic home of folks like Martin Luther, Goethe, and Beethoven – produce Hitler, Goebbels, and the Final Solution?

And when am I going to get around to writing about a movie?   About now.   “M,” directed by Fritz Lang in Germany in 1930 (just three years before the Nazis took over) is, on the surface, a story about a murderer of children.   Peter Lorre set the whole trajectory of his career as creepy killer Franz Becker, who probably really is mentally ill, and not faking it.    Lorre’s pudgy, pasty face and bulging eyes are unforgettable.    His Becker is a mixture of innocence and sickness – which, come to think of it, could be the very definition of the word “creepy.”    He walks down the street, whistling his little tune, and your bones chill.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmM3iEWPVkc]
“M” is often given credit for inventing the serial killer genre, but the glamorized gorefests being made today bear little in common with this film.   Lorre certainly isn’t glamorized; he’s no Hannibal Lecter.  He doesn’t play cat-and-mouse games with the police (though he does write a letter to the paper,) and he doesn’t even appear to be all that intelligent.    And we never see the murders; in fact, there’s only one in the timeframe of the movie.   It is marked with a striking montage: we see the girl’s empty dinner plate, a ball rolling unattended, and a balloon caught in high-tension telephone wires.   And we hear her mother call her, and call her, and call her.
But “M” isn’t really all that interested in Becker – he seems to spend as little time as possible onscreen.    It’s really a movie about the society in which he lives, and how they respond to knowing that there is a monster in their midst.   Nervous tension runs high, and everyone’s a suspect.   We watch as a group of men joylessly drinking together – apparently good friends – start to suspect and accuse each other.   Then an elderly gentlemen who gives a small girl the time is quickly surrounded by a mob, who first question, then assume, his motives toward her.   It’s not pretty.
The police, at wit’s end, just keep going over the same ground, raiding the same dives, arresting the same drunks and prostitutes.   This gets on the nerves of the various crime syndicates, who can’t do business in the midst of so much pesteration.  So they bond together and decide that they must capture the child murderer themselves.   Lang juxtaposes the criminals and the police, as each refine their strategies – the point being that there’s not much difference between the two groups.     That point is reemphasized later in the movie, as Becker is brought before a kangaroo court ruled by the criminals, who look with scorn at his pleas that he is not responsible for his actions.

Lang’s technical brilliance is apparent to anyone willing to pay attention.   He is continually expanding the canvas of the film past what the camera shows, making the world of the film bigger than it’s ever been.   Characters appear first as shadows, hands come from offscreen, and most notably, our villain whistles a tune that alerts us to his presence, even if he never steps onscreen.  Sound in film was only a few years old in 1930, but Lang was already pushing the envelope.
While “M” works as a simple serial killer flick, I think Fritz Lang intended his movie to a parable, not just a story, and I think this is why we remember it, some 60+ years later.   Lang lived through World War 1 in Germany, and the terrible years that followed.   By 1930, I think he could see the Nazis coming, and could guess how bad they could be.   Instead of making a movie condemning them – a movie that would be censored anyway – he made one describing and explaining the society that would allow them to come to power.   The questions I asked at the top of this review were the ones in his mind in 1930.  “M” is about more than a serial killer –- movies like that are a dime a dozen – it’s a movie about a society in which the criminals have as much authority as the police, a society desperate to purge itself of its guilt and societal sickness, and a society that gave rise to some of the most ruthless, evil killers history has ever produced.

The movie ends with a shot of the murdered childrens’ mothers.   Becker has been caught, and presumably executed.    “This will not bring our children back,”  one mother mourns.   “One has to keep closer watch over the children!”     I can’t help but wonder if, after the devastation of World War I and the spectre of another World War beginning to loom, this was Lang’s his final plea to his beloved country.

Is it great because it’s important? Yes.  “M” is credited for launching two genres of movie – serial killer flick and police procedural – and lays the groundwork for film noir, a genre Lang would work in extensively after his movie to the United States.

Is it great because it’s a good movie? There are more entertaining movies, but it’s far beyond technically or historically important.  But I think the incredible subtext and thematic force that puts this one into the “good movie” category.   You don’t have to be a history buff to appreciate its exploration, from the inside, of the Weimar Republic.

“City Lights” was Charlie Chaplin’s last silent film, and his best. Made in 1930, Chaplin could’ve made it with sound, but chose not to. This should be seen as an artistic choice, not a fear of change or technology; Chaplin went on to make several very good movies with sound (including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” two of his best.) But The Tramp is essentially a silent character, and “City Lights” is his final manifesto in silence.

The movie begins with a sendup of “talkies;” politicians and VIPs attend the unveiling of a statue and make big important speech – that come out as gibberish and noise. Then the veil lifts from the statue, and there is the Tramp, asleep in its lap. This “unveiling” of our beloved hero sets up the theme that runs throughout “City Lights,” which is about who sees the Tramp, how they see him, and how they respond to what they see.

Chaplin’s Tramp is iconic because he basically exists outside of society. He sees everybody, loves everybody, but isn’t anybody. Unlike Buster Keaton’s variety of characters, who always demanded respect and took their place in the order of things, Chaplin simply takes what’s given him, whether it’s acceptance or scorn, disgust or amusement. He acts as a mirror and a foil to the people around him, showing them who they are by how they treat him.

But my gosh, the way I’m talking about “City Lights,” you’d think it was some kind of French symbolist arthouse flick. This is comedy, great comedy, incredibly funny and fun filmmaking. If you see “City Lights,” you’ll be more likely to remember the great gags and slapstick humor than any of this high minded stuff I’m talking about. All the same, it’s still there, and arguably it’s what makes the film great. Yeah, that and the comedy.

The Tramp falls in love with a blind flowergirl. Through an accident of circumstance, she becomes convinced he’s wealthy. Then he meets a wealthy man, drunk and about to throw himself into the river with a rock tied around his neck. The Tramp stops him, with one of the greatest title cards ever: “Tomorrow, the birds will sing.” In the process, he manages to the the rope with the rock on it tied around his own neck, and in the comedy that follows, each takes turns saving the other’s life. They emerge best friends, and paint the town red. In the morning, the Millionaire has no idea who he is and sends hiim away. But in the evening, he’s drunk again, and they’re best friends again.

Because of his association with the Milionaire, the Tramp is able to keep up the illusion of being wealthy in front of the blind girl. He never really lies to her, he just lets her believe as she will. But then the Millionaire goes away to Europe, the blind girl gets sick, can’t pay her rent, and the Tramp tries boxing to raise some money for her.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ady5nodkA]

Things go pretty bad for him after that; the millionaire gets robbed, and blames in on the Tramp, who he doesn’t recognize because he’s sober. But before he’s shipped off to jail, the Tramp is able to get the blind girl the money she needs not only to stay off the street, but also to get her eyes fixed.

And now I’m going to break one of my own rules. I usually won’t show the endings of movies as part of a review, but “City Lights” has one of the best, sweetest, most tear-jerking and memorable endings in all of cinema. If you never see the movie, you still should see this ending. So here you go.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsaLq1jo9fc]
Back to the heavy themes, just for a moment. The Millionaire, perhaps because of his great importance and place in society, can only “see” the Tramp when he’s drunk. The blind girl, on the other hand, when she can finally literally see him, can also see the kind of person she is. Surprised that he’s not a wealthy man, she accepts him as he is, knowing, perhaps, that his kindness to her means that much more, because it was costly to him.

Charlie Chaplin always named “City Lights” his personal favorite of all his films. I think it is the film that most clearly and artfully portrays the Tramp, and his role in society; a clown, a descendant of the court jester, a silent commentator and mirror held up to the rest of the world. “City Lights” is a masterpiece, and the last great film of the Silent era.

Is it great because it’s important? Well, on one hand,I don’t think it’s particularly innovative or inventive. The techniques being used were intentionally behind the cutting-edge films of the day, and that’s part of its charm. On the other hand, Chaplin is an icon, and was, at one time, the most recognizable face on earth. So it’s culturally significant, without a doubt.

Is it great because it’s fun to watch? Yes, absolutely. On top of being funny and charming, poignant and moving, it carries a depth and meaning lacking in most comedies, of any time period. It is truly one of the greatest films ever made.

The first thing you notice when watching a Buster Keaton film is that he never smiles, never mugs, never admits that he’s in a funny situation. He’s the sad clown. The genius of his humor is that is it always, always goal-oriented. We, the audience, know what he’s trying to accomplish, and laugh at how the situation throws obstacle after obstacle in his way. There are usually villains in Buster Keaton movies, but it’s rarely the villains he battles against; it’s the circumstances. Maybe this is why he is so lovable, and why his movies stay so fresh; anyone can identify with a battle against the universe. Charlie Chaplin’s bum cries out for you to love him, and there’s something manipulative about that; you feel bad if you don’t find the joke funny. Buster Keaton just asks for your respect. And so you laugh.

The second thing you notice will be just how funny the gags are, but the third thing might be just how athletic Buster Keaton himself is. Physical comedy is almost by definition dangerous; these days, camera tricks and stunt men can manufacture dangerous situations without violating anyone’s liability clause in their insurance contract. But in the 1920s, things were different. The classic example has to be Harold Lloyd climbing that building in “Safety Last,” but Keaton’s stunts are more frequent, more rapid, and possibly more dangerous. Watch any of his movies and there’s not five minutes that goes by without him pulling some kind of stunt that could kill him. Danger-comedy. It’s fun to watch.

But let’s talk about the movies. Keaton was prolific; he started off making shorts with Fatty Arbuckle, then made his own short films, then made feature films, then signed with MGM and made talkies. All discussions really start with “The General,” filmed in 1927. Sight and Sound magazine named it the 15th best movie of all time in 2002, it’s on Roger Ebert’s great movies list, and at IMDB.com, it’s rated #136. It’s about a railroad man who tries to get recruited during the Civil War, but can’t; they need him to be a railroad man, but forget to tell him that, so he loses his girl. Then the guys in blue steal his engine, and his girl. Talk about a rough day The sustained setup of the movie is a railroad chase; stop and think about that and you might hurt your head. But “The General” makes it work. Keaton chases them in another engine, then they chase him, then the whole thing reverses. It ends spectacularly, as an engine goes off a bridge and into the river – one of the most expensive stunts attempted at the time. But “The General” is not my favorite Keaton movie, or really, even in my top 5. While it is certainly a masterpiece of creative problem solving, as we watch Keaton get his lil’ engine out of one jam after another, the setups just aren’t that funny. They’re entertaining, it’s never boring, but there’s a notable lack of belly laughs for such a noted movie.

Buster Keaton loved trains, and if he didn’t quite find their comedic value in “The General,” he did in the opening sequences of “Our Hospitality.” But it’s not a movie about trains, it’s a movie about a blood feud. But it opens with a ride on one of the first ever trains, and the ride is a joy to watch. The train moves so slow, Keaton’s dog can keep up. The railroad track goes right over logs, rocks, anything in the path. When a mule stands on the tracks and refuses to move, the engineer just moves the tracks around him instead.

When he arrives at his destination, he somehow finds himself in the home of a family sworn to kill him. But they can’t kill him as long as he’s in their house; southern hospitality won’t permit that. What follows is a frenetically paced series of setups in which he must find a way to stay inside the house, while they try desperately to get him out of it. It’s a much funnier set up than “The General’s” railroad chase. And “Our Hospitality” ends with one of Keaton’s most daring stunts: he swings out over a waterfall to save the girl of his dreams. The scene will make your stomach feel funny. Keaton almost died filming it, when one of his guidelines broke. Danger comedy strikes again.

Another on the short list of Keaton films you’re supposed to see is “The Navigator,” but, like “The General,” I think it’s notable for reasons other than pure comedy. This time Keaton finds himself stranded on a boat with a girl who doesn’t like him. Most of the gags are borrowed from his shorts; There’s a scene in which he tries to arrange a sleeping body in a deck chair that’s straight from “Spite Marriage,” and I think is funnier there. There’s also a creative kitchen gadgets scene, which is much better played in “The Scarecrow.” There’s an underwater sequence that is technically notable, but cinematically boring, and it ends with cannibals attacking the ship, which is one of the few Keaton setups which feels dated and tasteless.

If you’re into boats, skip “The Navigator” and find “the Boat” instead. It’s a short, timing in at just over 26 minutes, but I think has more laughs packed into it than its much longer maritime counterpart. There’s a great scene where he uses his wife’s inedible pancakes to seal a leak, and the film ends with a pun – a tough trick to pull off in a silent movie.

Steamboat Bill, Jr — another movie based on a boat — is another feature-length gem. This time Keaton is the dandy son of a rough-and-tumble steamboat captain; after the comedy of their clashing lifestyles culminates in a hilarious revolving hat scene, a tornado hits the town, and Keaton must save not only his dad, but his sweetheart, and her dad, and some old guy, as well. Buster Keaton battling the wind is more athletic/graceful than funny, but it’s still a sight to behold. Oh yes, and this one contains the famous, oft-mimicked scene in which a house falls on him, but he’s standing in just the right spot so that the open window falls around him. More danger comedy.

But my favorite Keaton film is “The Cameraman,” in which Keaton (or his nameless character) tries to win the love of a good woman by winning a cameraman job at the newspaper where she works. Keaton stumbles into a gang fight, and keeps rolling tape as the guns go off around him. I think the setups here are particularly inspired, and Buster as the underdog to all the other cameramen just cements his character’s role in the universe, and determination to change his circumstances. The fight scene is well shot and exciting, and, as a movie, “The Cameraman” manages to avoid the scenes that feel like filler or throwaway gags that mar his other films. While the others sometimes feel a bit too long, The Cameraman feels more like a long-runningshort – it makes every minute count.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz7FVY0qitc ]

A lot of silent stars couldn’t make the transition to sound, and Buster Keaton’s great films are almost certainly his silents. But I watched “Free and Easy,” his first “talkie” and saw no reason why he shouldn’t have succeeded at talking pictures. There’s nothing wrong with his voice, or delivery. His comic timing is still solid. What more likely led to his decline was the contract he signed with MGM. Known for their factory-like moviemaking process, it just wasn’t a happy atmosphere for Keaton, who thrived on improvisation, collaboration with his producers, and creative control – none of which were allowed him on the Hollywood sets. He became an alcoholic, and, by 1935, was writing gags for the Marx Brothers instead of performing on his own. Countless comedians and actors have studied and/or copied his routines, from Red Skelton to Jackie Chan. He was, and is, not only one of the great silent comedians, but one of the great comedians of any era or age.

Are they great because they’re important? A tough question to answer. Over the years, Keaton’s films have gone in and out of style. As soon as Hollywood started making movies with sound, comedy shifted to verbal, witty jokes, away from physical humor. But plenty of comedians have been influence by Keaton’s movies, and you shouldn’t really call yourself a Hollywood funny man these days unless you’ve seen them. Also, some of Keaton’s movies which get most talked about (The General, The Navigator) are more noted for their elaborate, expensive and dangerous stunts than for actually being funny.

Are they great because they’re good? Enough of them. Keaton had a real gift, that I think show up best in the short films. Watch “The Cameraman,” “The Boat,” and “The Scarecrow” to see Keaton films that are great just because they are funny and entertaining.

One of the most influential moments in early filmmaking must have been the moment Paul Leni decided to move from Germany, home of the great Expressionists, to Hollywood. Leni, who was known at home primarily for his set design and art direction, would direct only a few films for Universal in Hollywood before his tragic death, but those films would leave an indelible print on what became known as “Universal Horror.” These are the movies you think of when you think old, campy, scary movies — “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” and “The Mummy” and “Werewolf in London.” In a way, Paul Leni’s “The Man Who Laughs” is the father of them all. (on a barely related note, It’s also the father of Batman’s arch-nemesis, The Joker.)

What Leni did was to take the art of German Expressionism – the lighting that obscures more than it illuminates, the bizarre sets that instill a feeling of vertigo, the nightmarish feeling of the whole thing — and apply it to genre films, namely, horror films. Those early Expressionist films, by folks like FW Murnau and Fritz Lang were clearly, purposefully, sometimes pretentiously Art with a capital A. They are chock full of symbolism and subtext. Leni took the same methods, and made Entertainment. Sometimes he kept the symbolism and subtext — read on, and you’ll see that I find plenty of it in “The Man Who Laughs” — but his focus was creeping people out. And he was good at it.

“The Man Who Laughs,” based on a little known novel by Victor Hugo, is the story of a man, named Gwynplaine, whose face was cut up by gypsies (Comprachicos, to be exact,) when he was a child. He cannot stop smiling. His lips never meet. Pure at heart, he is a clown in a travelling sideshow — until the Queen of England discovers he is of noble blood, and attempts to make him a Lord, and to marry a Lady.

Leni takes this story and makes a parable out of it through the use of his camera. Gwynplaine is the disfigured one, but almost everyone who steps in front of the camera appears grotesque, ugly, and in some unidentifiable way, disfigured. Gwynplaine becomes our hero because it is easy to identify exactly what is wrong with his face. Everyone else is… unsettling.

The first twelve minutes are absolutely horrifying. We witness the death of Gwynplaine’s father, at the hands of a sadistic king and grotesque court jester named Barkilphedro. Then the poor boy with the disfigured face is abandoned by the Comprachicos, and there is a chilling scene of him wandering in the snow, stumbling past rows of hanging corpses and finding a mother and child. The mother has frozen to death. Gwynplaine rescues the child. Then he stumbles upon Ursus the philosopher, and the soft music starts.

Cut to the children grown up, still in the care of Ursus, who is a travelling performer. The child in the snow has become blind Dea, a vision of purity in blonde tresses. Dressed in a flowing white gown, she is an angel. Gwynplaineand Dea are in love, but Gwynplaine feels unlovable. How can Dea love him if she cannot see his horrible face?

There is a parable about love here – some deeper truths. Gwynplaine cannot accept the love of Dea because she hasn’t seen his ugliness. He asks her, “You would marry me, then Dea, without seeing me?” It is incomprehensible. To love someone is to accept them with full knowledge of just how ugly they are. Ignorance is no way out. Gwynplaine knows about his ugliness, so he feels he can only be truly loved by someone who knows it with him. Love is about dealing with ugliness.

Then we are introduced to the Duchess Josiana. She is a perfect foil to Dea – both blonde, both beautiful, but Josiana is tawdry and bold. Her opening scene is incredibly risque, and reminds us that this was filmed before the 1930 production code. How long would it be before you would see this much skin onscreen? And it is uncanny how much Olga Baclanova looks like Madonna, 30 years before the singer was even born.

The Duchess Josiana sees Gwynplaine at a carnival, and is intrigued — or aroused – by his disfigurement. She sends him a note, inviting him to a tryst. Gwynplaine sees it as a way to find out if he is worthy of Dea’s love; if a woman who can see him can love him, he is lovable. Thus “The Man Who Laughs” takes what is really it’s first misstep. Gwynplaine’s dilemma may be easy enough to understand, but his solution is beyond belief. To leave the one you love for another in order to find out if you’re really worthy of the one you love? Give me a break.

It becomes clear in the bedroom scene (which is a masterpiece of disturbed sexuality) that Lady Josianna, and the whole world, are not laughing at Gwynplaine because he is disfigured, but because he isn’t — because he is so innocent, pure and naive in such a world of beasts and intrigue. And now we see what this movie really is going to be about. Only a man of incredible, unbelievable naivete would think that going to visit another woman would prove his love for Dea. But this is exactly who we must believe Gwynplaine to be: he is beyond a good man – he is a pure man in the most impure of worlds. The crowds are full of beasts and bawdy women; the courts full of crows and cronies. Only Gwynplaine and Dea are pure and innocent. They don’t belong in this world.

Inevitably, Gwynplaine gets sucked into this world, and his purity must be tested. I’m not talking about the bedroom scene, but about what follows. The court discovers his is of noble blood, and tries to make a nobleman out of him. When Gwynplaine is taken to the court, his concern – and that of Ursa — is that Dea never find out. According to the plot, this is because they think he is being taken to prison. But if we look a little deeper, we see that it is because Gwynplaine is becoming a part of the impure world. It is not until he utterly rejects the aristocrats and their world that he has any hope of being reunited with Dea.

As far as the plot goes, things get pretty implausible at this point. Why would you throw a guy in prison one day if you meant to make him a Peer of England the next? And why would you tell the only family he’s got he’s dead – and then banish them from England? Won’t his first act as a man of power be to bring his loved ones near to him? And when that’s not possible, to punish those who made it impossible? And then there’s a dog as smart as Lassie (and a killer too!) and a daring escape, and a swordfight… yeah. The film really unravel in its last reel. I don’t think Paul Leni really knew what to do with Gwynplaine once he got him into the court. Or maybe it’s the fault of Hugo – seems like his strength was always setting up the big scene, and his weakness was delivering the big scene. Naturally, the movie has a happy, if unsatisfying, ending; Gwynplaine and Dea, together again, the world behind them, love before them. Naturally.

But don’t let the bad ending deter you from enjoying this film. There is plenty here to like, and plenty to ponder. Paul Leni, mainly through photography, lighting, and makeup, makes a point about the depravity and disfigurement of the whole world, and uses a literally disfigured man as his foil. It’s a genius move, and a movie worth seeing.

Is it great” because it’s important? Yes. “The Man Who Laughs” influenced a whole generation of horror flicks, and marks the transition from German Expressionism to Universal Horror.

Is it great because it’s fun to watch? Mostly. Some parts are awfully cheesy and it’s hard to swallow the overacting that carried over from Expressionist works, but the storyline has depth and insight and that makes it a memorable movie experience.