50 new things in 2023, part 8/50
Feb. 22nd, 2023 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitThis week's new-to-me thing was the 1931 movie The Front Page, which stars Pat O'Brien as reporter Hildy Johnson (who wants to quit and move to New York with his fiancée to work in advertising) and Adolphe Menjou as his wily editor Walter Burns, who will stop at nothing to make him stay.
I was expecting screwball comedy, and I did get . . . some. Along with a hefty dose of pitch-black cynicism about reporting, policing, and politics, and some genuinely very dark content. This is a movie that opens with a scene of the gallows being tested, to ensure that all's ready for the hanging of Earl Williams (George E. Stone), an unemployed "Bolshevik" (he insists he's an anarchist) convicted of shooting a Black police officer during a protest. The sheriff and mayor of the unnamed-but-definitely-Chicago city, facing re-election in a week, have railroaded Williams to court Black voters as well as to reinforce the sheriff's slogan "Reform the reds with a rope!" Pretty much everybody in the movie, with the exception of Williams and his only friend, streetwalker Molly Molloy (Mae Clarke), is callous and self-serving. Nastiness flies in the dialogue, including enormous amounts of casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. Some of it's from characters we're not supposed to like, but by no means all, so be warned.
It's a fast-talking, aggressive little movie, with endless scenes of people shouting into telephones. Most of it didn't strike me as very funny, and I found both Hildy Johnson and fiancée Peggy Grant (Mary Brian) pretty dull. However, the movie shows traces of a tender heart, particularly in Williams and Molloy, who have a lovely brief scene together where he argues for the goodness of humanity, and she, out of bitter experience, disagrees--but they each see the other as a good person.
Besides Williams and Molloy, my other favorite character was Roy Bensinger (Edward Everett Horton, funnier than the rest of the cast put together), a health-obsessed reporter who struck a strangely modern note by, when everyone else was getting hamburgers, ordering a lettuce sandwich on gluten bread. He's very insistent about the gluten bread. (Nowadays it would be gluten-free, of course.)
There's a lot about The Front Page that's eerily modern. Crooked "law and order" politicians, unscrupulous lying press, brutal and corrupt cops. The actual mechanics of the film haven't aged well--it's so stagey you can practically hear the creak of the floorboards, and it feels much older than films from just a few years later--but its concerns are looking, sadly, timeless.
I can't exactly say I liked it, but I found it interesting in a number of mostly-uncomfortable ways.
I was expecting screwball comedy, and I did get . . . some. Along with a hefty dose of pitch-black cynicism about reporting, policing, and politics, and some genuinely very dark content. This is a movie that opens with a scene of the gallows being tested, to ensure that all's ready for the hanging of Earl Williams (George E. Stone), an unemployed "Bolshevik" (he insists he's an anarchist) convicted of shooting a Black police officer during a protest. The sheriff and mayor of the unnamed-but-definitely-Chicago city, facing re-election in a week, have railroaded Williams to court Black voters as well as to reinforce the sheriff's slogan "Reform the reds with a rope!" Pretty much everybody in the movie, with the exception of Williams and his only friend, streetwalker Molly Molloy (Mae Clarke), is callous and self-serving. Nastiness flies in the dialogue, including enormous amounts of casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. Some of it's from characters we're not supposed to like, but by no means all, so be warned.
It's a fast-talking, aggressive little movie, with endless scenes of people shouting into telephones. Most of it didn't strike me as very funny, and I found both Hildy Johnson and fiancée Peggy Grant (Mary Brian) pretty dull. However, the movie shows traces of a tender heart, particularly in Williams and Molloy, who have a lovely brief scene together where he argues for the goodness of humanity, and she, out of bitter experience, disagrees--but they each see the other as a good person.
Spoilers here, not that the plot is very important
I wish we knew what became of them. Molly's courage in the face of dismissal and belittling from the cops and reporters made her my favorite character, and I found her onscreen suicide attempt genuinely shocking. And while Williams gets his reprieve for shooting the cop, nothing in the film gives me confidence that he won't be charged for shooting the psychiatrist and attempting to escape.Besides Williams and Molloy, my other favorite character was Roy Bensinger (Edward Everett Horton, funnier than the rest of the cast put together), a health-obsessed reporter who struck a strangely modern note by, when everyone else was getting hamburgers, ordering a lettuce sandwich on gluten bread. He's very insistent about the gluten bread. (Nowadays it would be gluten-free, of course.)
There's a lot about The Front Page that's eerily modern. Crooked "law and order" politicians, unscrupulous lying press, brutal and corrupt cops. The actual mechanics of the film haven't aged well--it's so stagey you can practically hear the creak of the floorboards, and it feels much older than films from just a few years later--but its concerns are looking, sadly, timeless.
I can't exactly say I liked it, but I found it interesting in a number of mostly-uncomfortable ways.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-22 07:32 pm (UTC)I adore Edward Everett Horton. He is a treasure of almost every movie he's in. Personally I am especially fond of him in Lost Horizon (1937), Holiday (1938), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), The Gang's All Here (1943), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), with honorable mention for Roar of the Dragon (1932) and Going Highbrow (1935). Mae Clarke is also wonderful and rarely given roles as good as she was, of which the pre-Code Waterloo Bridge (1931) is supposed to be the best; I still haven't seen it.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-22 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-22 08:09 pm (UTC)Nice! My childhood introduction was Arsenic and Old Lace, which also accounts for my affection for Peter Lorre.
(Roar of the Dragon and Going Highbrow are honorable mentions because they are not in fact very good movies, Horton's just very good in them. I would recommend any of the others on their own merits and I totally support rewatching Holiday. It is one of the movies I have never managed to write about because I love it so much.)
[edit] Lost Horizon does deserve a warning for period-typical Orientalism including Sam Jaffe in Tibetan yellowface, but it also ships Horton and Thomas Mitchell, so.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-22 08:17 pm (UTC)And yeah it sounds interesting, but not exactly fun (now I'm kinda curious about it and the original play).