Filmfest 1940-1942 - Loyalty

Picture doodads coming later...

When I was younger, my Mom had a saying that would sometimes need to be repeated to my siblings and me, typically when we were complaining about a family event conflicting with something we wanted to do. "Family comes first." Regardless of the situation, those three simple words reminded us that our first loyalty was to our family. That meant if a sibling was having trouble with something, we automatically had his or her back. It meant that if we had to choose between spending time with our family or with yahoos from school, we picked family. It meant that no disagreement between us was big enough to make us forget that we were brothers and sisters first, and always will be. It's a philosophy that has lead to us being one of the tightest-knit families I've ever seen, and I hope that I can pass it on to my own family someday.

This batch of movies each touch on the concept of loyalty, though not specifically to one's family. Within my family, loyalty means a steadfast feel of fierce unity and support, but these characters explore the various ways loyalty can be interpreted or twisted. Loyal to their professional dignity, their loves, their childhood dreams, their art, to another person or simply to themselves, these are some of the greatest characters in movie history. In most cases that means a spectacular film results, but there's still one that I can't quite learn to love as fervently as most cinemaphiles. Overall, though, it's a good group, and long overdue for sharing.

1940 - The Philadelphia Story (#44) - I first saw this movie in October of last year and liked it quite a bit. When it came back up on my list, I thought for a while about how I'd perceived it and decided it didn't necessitate a rewatch, though I'll certainly enjoy watching it again sometime. Just not in the middle of this project. The film is a pretty standard romantic comedy, by today's formulaic interpretation of the genre. But this incarnation is a rather well done one, with some of the era's best actors to boot. Anytime you have James Stewart, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant on screen at the same time, you're pretty sure to enjoy the show. The craziness all starts with Cary Grant showing up on ex-wife Hepburn's doorstep just as she's preparing to remarry. You can imagine the zaniness that ensues, especially after newspaper reporter/paparazzo Stewart arrives to document it all. It's clever and witty, and you can't help watching without a smile.

4 out of 5 sailboats that are quite "yar"



1941 - Citizen Kane (#1) - Here it is. The one I just didn't much like, and as luck would have it, the American Film Institute thinks it's literally the best movie ever. Now, there can be some sense of smug satisfaction in not liking what everyone else does, but I'm not just dissing this movie to be some kind of hipster. See my (quite different) response to movie number 2 as proof. No, I just didn't like this film because there was no one to like in it, and no one to truly sympathize with. Sure, plenty happens, but in a "biopic" on fictional news baron Charles Foster Kane, if you don't care what happens to Kane, it's a bit of a bust. The guy was written as kind of a jerk, so you were hard-pressed to feel much besides "serves him right" when ills befell him. For the record, I do understand why he's portrayed that way, but I just didn't feel like it was well rationalized. On the plus side, the story of what does happen to him is fairly interesting, and a second viewing revealed some unique innovations in filmmaking. Strange camera angles, effects of scale, shadow and optics - it was all pretty neat. But without a person to root for, it felt really long and I just wanted it to be over.

2 out of 5 printing presses



1941 - The Maltese Falcon (#23) - It's hard to say for sure, but I think this was one of the first classic movies I sat down on the couch with my Dad to watch on PBS some Sunday afternoon, and I have loved it ever since. You probably can tell by now that I enjoy the genre of film noir, of which Maltese Falcon is one of the best. This movie has it all: hardboiled detectives, a classic femme fatale, a mysterious object of desire, and constant double and triple crosses. Add in some of the best actors of the era: Humphrey Bogart playing Sam Spade as no one else could have, with a devil-may-care attitude and plenty of snappy one-liners. Peter Lorre as the effeminate and sniveling Joel Cairo, and of course Sydney Greenstreet as the enormous and smooth-talking Kaspar Gutman. They're all chasing after the Maltese Falcon, a jewel-encrusted bird statue of immense value. As they go, allegiances are tested, lives become expendable and the audience is kept breathless, guessing whose side anyone is on. It's a suspenseful ride with memorable quotes throughout, set in a well-executed rendition of seedy parts of San Francisco. I love this movie; I'd watch it pretty much anytime.

5 out of 5 black birds (of course)



1941 - Sullivan's Travels (#61) - Finally! We had a gap in our Netflix queue so I nabbed it to get a copy of Sullivan's Travels, the only missing film from this set of five for the past month or more. I don't know if that extended wait raised my expectations for the movie, but I found myself rather underwhelmed by it. It was decent, don't get me wrong, but certainly not on par with the best movies of this era. The concept centers on a big time Hollywood film producer, known for making profitable comedies, who wants to make something truly meaningful, capturing the grit and despondency of the poor at the time. Not a bad premise for a film, and I do think this could have been good. But, ironically enough, the movie suffered from a lack of identity as it wavered at different points between being a slapstick comedy and a serious drama. I do believe that movies can blur that line, but I'm not sure this one did it successfully. Jumping from a painfully bad car chase using sped-up film and ridiculous situations to our protagonist somberly walking amongst the homeless was a bit too inconsistent for me. That said, there were parts of this movie I did like, from the sultry Veronica Lake (inspiration for Jessica Rabbit, don't ya know) and her sarcastic wit to the moving scene at the church picture show. But it just didn't all play well together, and had a convenient ending that I had a major problem with. An okay movie, but definitely not great.

3 out of 5 hobo boxcars



1942 - Casablanca (#2) - Here it is. The greatest and most perfect movie of all time. I realize that I'm hardly being original in that assertion, but sometimes classics are classics for a reason. If the Maltese Falcon was the first classic film I saw, this one has to be the first one I loved. Again featuring Humphry Bogart, this time as a world-weary American expatriate living in Casablanca toward the beginning of WWII. The supporting characters are fantastic, too, including Peter Lorre (again), Sydney Greenstreet (again), Claude Rains, and the lovely Ingrid Bergman. But the thing that makes this film so transcendent is the story. There isn't necessarily a Hollywood happy ending here, the world isn't quite as simple as black and white, and love can mean many things, not necessarily what's expected. Bogart's Rick starts off cold and cynical, but we quickly learn that there's much more beneath the surface. As letters of transit to escape Casablanca mysteriously go missing, the action comes quickly, but always revealing more about what people are willing to do to get what they want. Words can't really describe how much I love the ending of this movie - it is simply the perfect moment, scripted beautifully and atmospherically staged. That scene sums up the themes of the movie, but the whole film is a work of art, that any movie lover simply has to watch.

5 out of 5