You could do a lot worse on this boat than a tumble with me

[sovay]

That was nine hours straight of pre-Code Paramount Pictures. Six features, three shorts. The sun had just risen by the time we were wandering the cool, shuttered streets of Harvard Square. I am not sure that I have, presently, the brain for a film-by-film writeup such as I produced for the Somerville's sci-fi 'Thon in February, but it was a wonderful thing to meet rushthatspeaks, derspatchel, and ajodasso for and exactly how I wanted to spend whatever stamina I had left this weekend. At this distance, I think I was most impressed by Girls About Town (1931) for its refusal to end in any of the moral directions that would have been inescapable a few years later, White Woman (1933) for everything about Charles Laughton (although his mustache alone would have sufficed), and Cleopatra (1934) for the way it retained only such minute and passing fragments of historical accuracy as would cause its audience to splutter all the more incoherently at the rest of the film, viz. the panther girls leaping through flaming hoops or Rush's speculation that Claudette Colbert's costumes were contractually obliged to reveal more of her breasts with each change until she got down to two feathers and a necklace and had to start building up again. The Wild Party (1929) mostly proved that Clara Bow should have flourished in the sound era (and that we are all very glad some things about gender in this country have actually changed) and the ending of Hot Saturday (1932) seems to have left everyone in the theater confused. There is no other word than "phenomenon" for Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933). Betty Boop Talkartoons are sort of amazingly surrealist. There were free donuts and coffee. And free pizza. Which I did not eat at the time, because that was two or three in the morning and I was doing fine on bitter lemon and chocolate with cornflakes in, but I have just made up for it by reheating some of the pizza from yesterday's adventures in moving and now I am going to lie down. I really, really hope an all-night pre-Code marathon becomes a regular feature of the HFA. I wouldn't at all mind two institutional excuses to lose sleep with film and people I like.

Comments

[andrian6.livejournal.com]

It's a shame some of these films are only available on YouTube, of all places. I do hope the festival becomes a regular feature. The more folks see these films, the better their chances of survival.

[sovay]

It's a shame some of these films are only available on YouTube, of all places.

I couldn't even find more than the last scene from White Woman when I was trying to double-check the line quoted in the title of this post. That one, I was surprised by. I can't claim it's a neglected treasure; it's a humid melodrama in a setting so indiscriminately exotic (British expatriates speak of coming to "the islands" and address the natives in pidgin, but there are rubber plantations located up the river, mudbank channels full of crocodiles and Victoria amazonica, and a pet chimpanzee lollops nimbly around the listing steamboat on which Horace H. Prin, self-proclaimed "King of the River," makes his home) we couldn't pin down a hemisphere until the second act and even then we didn't believe it, but it would make a very striking double feature with Island of Lost Souls (1932). rushthatspeaks thought Francis Ford Coppola must have seen it; I thought Werner Herzog. derspatchel said Laughton would have made an incredible Kurtz in a contemporary Heart of Darkness. I'd love to have seen that, but until such time as we get access to the same alternate universe as Wuthering Heights with Robert Newton and Powell and Pressburger's Earthsea, White Woman is the closest we're going to get and despite its dire title, it should be on DVD. The ethnography will make everyone's teeth hurt, but it's not like Carole Lombard was chopped liver, either.

I do hope the festival becomes a regular feature. The more folks see these films, the better their chances of survival.

We said things strongly to this effect as we were leaving, so I hope the organizers take note once they've gotten some sleep.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it was such a good time for you. I'm looking forward to a further writeup, if you should feel at some point like making such.

[sovay]

I'm looking forward to a further writeup, if you should feel at some point like making such.

Thank you. May occur in comments. I napped for about two hours in the afternoon, but I wouldn't say my brain's back online yet.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thank you. May occur in comments.

You're welcome. I'll keep an eye on them, so.

I napped for about two hours in the afternoon, but I wouldn't say my brain's back online yet.

Hope all goes well on that front.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I think I was most impressed by Girls About Town (1931) for its refusal to end in any of the moral directions that would have been inescapable a few years later, White Woman (1933) for everything about Charles Laughton (although his mustache alone would have sufficed)

I enjoyed these two most of all, and for the same reasons, too (I will add that Kay Francis was a major highlight of Girls About Town for me)! The Wild Party was simultaneously fantastic and very frustrating...

[sovay]

(I will add that Kay Francis was a major highlight of Girls About Town for me)!

Agreed! I didn't recognize her as Wanda despite her name in the opening credits and I hadn't thought she was a chameleon at all.

The Wild Party was simultaneously fantastic and very frustrating...

Bow's Stella Ames is awesome. She deserved a better plot. Seriously, I think the nicest thing I can do for that finale is tell myself it's in the same continuity as White Woman and Laughton will eat Fredric March for breakfast, having run out of scenery to nosh.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

The Stanford Theater in Palo Alto does pre-Code films regularly, along with their other excellent offerings. (It's the only place I've ever seen Ealing films.) I don't go as often as I ought...

Claudette Colbert is my favorite actress.

[sovay]

The Stanford Theater in Palo Alto does pre-Code films regularly, along with their other excellent offerings. (It's the only place I've ever seen Ealing films.)

Nice! The only Ealing film I've ever seen on the big screen is The Man in the White Suit (1951), thanks to the Coolidge Corner Theatre's Science on Screen. I do love that movie.

Claudette Colbert is my favorite actress. Why?

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I admire her ease and her delivery---she never really gets lost in a role (that I've seen), but she's always expressive and there's a warmth to her that's very appealing. She had a lovely voice, too, and she used it well, her speech seems more vivid than most modern actresses (duh) but also more than some of her contemporaries (e.g. Hepburn).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Is The Man in the White Suit the industrial espionage film, where the suit never wears out? I saw that on TV when I was in high school--part of it anyway--and thought it was very cool.

[sovay]

Is The Man in the White Suit the industrial espionage film, where the suit never wears out?

I don't know if I'd classify it as industrial espionage as opposed to incredibly intelligent mad science, but yes. It's my reigning favorite Ealing comedy and one of the roles I like Alec Guinness best in, because his absently explosive Sidney Stratton is both (I described him once to strange_selkie) a sympathetic luftmentsh and a self-centered engine of chaos. I recommend it pretty much unreservedly.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

mostly proved that Clara Bow should have flourished in the sound era

Haven't seen this one, but the more recording I hear of silent stars, the more I become convinced that the old "people's careers ruined by sound" trope is utter bosh.

[sovay]

Haven't seen this one, but the more recording I hear of silent stars, the more I become convinced that the old "people's careers ruined by sound" trope is utter bosh.

derspatchel tells me—and I trust him on this sort of thing—that Bow's voice was not well received at the time; it's as sparky, streetwise, and carelessly sexy as the rest of her, but you can hear Brooklyn in it. Apparently that didn't go over so well. Grit teeth, wish for alt-history machine.

John Gilbert, though, appears to be a myth.

The silent star I've previously missed most in the sound era is Richard Barthelmess, whom I've only seen in speaking roles—the tough-break protagonist of William Wellman's Heroes for Sale (1933), a fascinating supporting part in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). It is incomprehensible to me that he was out of movies entirely by 1942, because from a modern perspective he transitions beautifully from one style to the next, especially in his low-key, naturalistic acting, his slightly rough tenor voice and his neat-boned face. He gives an amazing interior performance as the disgraced and ostracized flyer in Angels, a man who enters every scene with his shoulders tensed and a wary, half-defiant flick of a look from under his brows, his mouth braced down like a tight little reverse smile. He never says anything to defend himself; his stone face is mistaken by the other pilots for a lack of shame. He has such thick dark lashes, every time he lowers his eyes is as good as a blow. He makes two or three films after that and retires. I could have watched him happily for years. I have to assume it wasn't a world he wanted to/felt he could stay in.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This was the day you saw the sun rise!

we are all very glad some things about gender in this country have actually changed

Which ones?

that was two or three in the morning and I was doing fine on bitter lemon and chocolate with cornflakes in

"Do not partake of the pizza, donuts, or coffee, or you may never leave the perilous realm, but partake only of these bitter lemon and chocolate [items] with cornflakes, that you may yet return home clothed in more than two feathers and a necklace."

[sovay]

This was the day you saw the sun rise!

Yes!

Which ones?

As rushthatspeaks pointed out, the world of the film views as morally equivalent one female student's staying chastely out past curfew with a male student from a neighboring college and another's having an affair with her professor. And then it is considered entirely reasonable that she leave college at the end of the picture to run off to Malaya with said professor, as opposed to kicking his patronizing ass to the curb. We spent most of the movie terrified that the student who's set up as serious and studious and brilliant and wants an academic career would be married off to save her from the fate of bluestockinged spinsterhood/queerness after her friends talk her into a flapper dress and an all-night party. To its credit, the film doesn't go there—she finishes the school year with honors and a scholarship and no indications that she's giving up on her dream for the nice young man she curled up on the beach with—but I think it says something about the choices the script was presenting that all four of us were equally worried. It knows that women's roles are changing; it even tries to have a discussion about what it means to be a liberated woman. It's just not actually moving fast enough to encompass all those changes itself.

"Do not partake of the pizza, donuts, or coffee, or you may never leave the perilous realm, but partake only of these bitter lemon and chocolate [items] with cornflakes, that you may yet return home clothed in more than two feathers and a necklace."

Innana could have used this advice.