CCF -
Scarface is pretty grand stuff, might be my favorite pre-code gangster film, though
Beast of the City is right there too. Muni's performance is pretty remarkable given the fact that he was an unknown, and that he was pretty much the antithesis of Tony Carmonte in real-life. Love the chemistry between him and Ann Dvorak, absolutely compelling yet reprehensible at the same time. As for George Raft, well he's more or less a still but he sure looks good on camera, and the coin-flip became one of his trademarks...even being parodied in
Some Like It Hot. I'd much rather watch this version than the Pacino one. Ooh, if you watched the DVD, did you check out the alternate ending? It's so heavy-handed and over the top that it would've undermined the rest of the film.
I watched a few silents in the past couple weeks:
The Racket - Another silent gangster film capitolizing on the success of von Sternberg's
Underworld. Thomas Meighan is the tough and no-nonsense cop who goes up against Louis Wolheim's gangster and city corruption. Marie Prevost is the tough dame who brings it all down. George E. Stone plays Wolheim's younger brother and goes from being a fresh faced college kid to a lechorous drunk in no time, thus provided the impetus for Wolheim's downfall. I found the plot somewhat convoluted as it turns from a simple redemption story about Meighan into a complex series of interactions that lead to the destruction of a political machine. Stone's turn from nice guy to moron is a little hard to take, and Prevost doesn't get enough to do. In the end Wolheim turns yellow, and his attempts to buy his way and legally maneuvre his way out are rebuffed.
I think what I've realized about the pre-
Public Enemy gangster films is that the plot usually goes to great lengths to make the gangsters seem yellow, from Cagney's snivelling snitch in
Doorway To Hell, to Chester Morris' ridiculous breakdown (I mean he's practically crying) in
Alibi. I understand why this was done (in order to make crime seem unappealing) but I find it undermines the character development of the gangsters. So all of the sudden this tough hoodlum who's fought and scraped his way to success turns totally p*ssy at the sight of a copper pulling his gun. It's hard to take.
I also have issues with the idea of cops breaking the law as in The Racket when in a climactic scene, the cops rip up the Habeus Corpus writ produced by Wolheim's lawyer. Even if the legal system is being used and abused, I find the idea of a cop breaking the law reprehensible. The ends don't justify the means...despite what Dirty Harry has taught us.
Haxan: Witchcraft Throughout the Ages: Pretty grand pseudo-documentary from Benjamin Christensen. It's my first of his films, and I was very impressed. There's some great photograpy and composition, and I really liked the blending of past and present to tell the story. I found the documentary aspects to be the most fascinating as some of the artwork is very compelling. I've always found the middle ages fascinating so to see old images from the time, as well as torture devices of the era is pretty compelling. As a modern viewer the documentary component is doubly fascinating because the film is from 1922. So I felt I was watching history unfold despite the fact that there was a 400 year difference between the materials shown and the actual filming.
As for the dramatic aspects, I thought they were well handled. I was a little disappointed that the film wasn't strictly a documentary, but the individual scenarios were all quite engaging. I also found the sympathetic portrayal of mental illness in the finale to be quite surprising. Essentially Christensen points out that in days of yore, mental illness was often seen as a sign of witchcraft, but in the modern age things like sleepwalking, kleptomania, twitching and nervous tic aren't seen the same way. I haven't seen such a sympathetic portrayal of mental illness in such an early film.
The Land Beyond the Sunset - Another film from the National Film Registry, this film really knocked me off my feet. It's a one-reeler from 1912, sponsered by the New York Fresh Air Fund, a group devoted to providing outdoor opporunities for city kids. The film focuses on a poor newsboy who's abused by his alcoholic grandmother (she beats him and takes his money). Eventually he ends up going on a day trip to a oceanside with the Fresh Air Fund. There he picnics with other kids and organizers, and is eventually read a story about a poor boy who is abused by a witch, and eventually with the help of fairies is able to escape and sale to the Land Beyond the Sunset. Whilst hearing the story, the boy pictures his grandmother, and in a great superimposition she is shown beating him, and it appears the boy's mind is made up. So while everyone leaves he sneaks off to the oceanshore and finds a boat and sails off to the Land Beyond the Sunset. The final shot is this lone boy on a tiny boat, amidst the vast ocean, with the sun setting in the distance.
Here's a screenshot:
Just a brilliant ending, that totally resonated with my recurring fantasy to escape the real world somehow. The ending is made infinitely more surprising (and powerful) due to the fact that the film is from 1912, is 13 minutes long, and was designed as a promotional film. Anyway it's a glorious little gem, that thankfully is available in the Treasures of the American Film Archives boxset.
"Do you think it's dangerous to have Busby Berkeley dreams?" - The Magnetic Fields