by Dean | May 1, 2019 | General
Cover of Gone with the Wind
Does the experience of war ever change people for the better? In Gone with the Wind, it seems to do so for Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), but not for Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), who retains her rotten soul. . . After a war’s catastrophe, it is often the quality of determination (such as Scarlett’s)—not, alas, morality—that springs up and creates a person’s destiny.
The 1939 Selznick-produced blockbuster has many weaknesses, but it certainly has its strengths as well. One can’t help admiring its scope, its epic reach, but it is also rich and insidiously seductive enough to be a thoroughgoing crowd-pleaser. Though its last hour is too episodic, GWTW ambles on until it becomes what one might expect it never to become: a properly transporting period piece, however fantastic.
Further, Vivien Leigh, whose high-pitched speech might be an irritant to some, is rightly and fascinatingly vivid as Scarlett.
Cropped screenshot of Vivien Leigh from the trailer for the film Gone with the Wind (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Dean | Apr 29, 2019 | General
I certainly wasn’t bored by the 1936 film Rembrandt, by Alexander Korda, but I have to consider it kitsch. This is because Charles Laughton, as the great Dutch painter, draws every jot of attention to himself while the other actors are forced to be virtually nondescript. (A near-exception is Gertrude Lawrence.) And because there is too much just-so production design with bric-a-brac and windmills. It is, in fact, an unfortunate stylization. Stylization usually is at least somewhat unfortunate.
by Dean | Apr 25, 2019 | General
In William Wellman‘s Night Nurse (1931), the world of nursing can be an alarming and even dangerous one because of human nature.
Barbara Stanwyck stars as Lora Hart, a nurse hired to care for an alcoholic’s two ostensibly sick children. In truth, a lawless brute called Nick (Clark Gable) is slowly starving the children because their deaths will mean financial gain for him. It is the early Thirties, and the big city is producing small-time Al Capones and Johnny Torrios. A bootlegger (Ben Lyon) who is sexually attracted to Lora represents moral ambiguity. He is an inhumane man, but he helps Lora against Nick. All of this, and the fact that Lora seems to be taking up with the bootlegger, requires that she be a strong woman, in the way that her somewhat cynical friend (Joan Blondell) is strong. And she is.
Based on a novel by Grace Perkins, Night Nurse is blunt and engrossing, more consequential than Wellman’s The Public Enemy. Even David Thomson, who has been unfair to Wellman, has praised it.
by Dean | Apr 24, 2019 | General
What is The Confessions of X (2016), a novel by Suzanne M. Wolfe, about? Its narrative is about the concubine, unnamed, of St. Augustine before he became a Christian. Thematically it is about the unbreakable tie between former lovers who have lived without any other lover (or spouse). It is about unexpected conversion and sudden change (a minor example: a saved woman, Perpetua, becomes like a sister to “X” after initially snapping at her for her concubinage). It is about love.
The book is almost always finely, astutely written, even if the characterization lacks admirable depth. Also, I found certain parts of it a bit of a slog, and yet Wolfe’s details are very often memorable. If The Confessions of X is a Christian novel—it was published by Thomas Nelson, and Wolfe possesses a Christian sensibility—it’s probably the best Christian novel of 2016. It’s not the kind of book that comes out frequently.
by Dean | Apr 22, 2019 | General
I liked the acting of Stella Stevens in the 1968 film, How to Save a Marriage (And Ruin Your Life), but not in the highly commercial 1966 spy adventure, The Silencers. (Dean Martin’ s acting doesn’t pass muster either.) But she is there, and there is actually much to comment on. Stevens has a sophisticated face which can look very vulnerable, and her voice when raised grabs your attention. She has a dandy figure, priceless hair and beautiful breasts. Moreover, she and the other actors look good in Moss Mabrey’s striking costumes. Also co-starring in the movie is Daliah Levi, histrionically dull but certifiably comely.
The Silencers presents Dino as a plebeian American James Bond. It was made at a time when every element of an entertainment film, not just the action scenes, was meant to entertain. Robust but also crass, the pic’s problem is not (covered) female hooters; it’s sexual hedonism.
