Citizen Kane (1941)

Everybody knows this movie. Orson Welles' masterpiece. Everybody's pick for best movie ever. Nobody's pick for what they want to rent tonight. 

I was given this film many years ago back when it didn't seem strange to give someone a VCR tape for birthday. I tried watching it once but found it long, confounding, and frankly rather dull. Maybe I got a half hour into it. Finally, I gave it another try. 

The movie starts with the death of Charles Kane, wealthy newspaper magnate (in olden times, newspapers used to turn a profit!) His last word (although nobody is there to hear it) is "Rosebud". The media, fascinated by what this could mean, investigate Kane's life to find out what was so important to a man that had everything. Apparently there wasn't anything else going on in 1941 worth reporting. We learn about Kane's life in retrospective. 

Charles Foster Kane is supposed to be William Randolph Hearst. There are lots of connections between the story and Hearst's life, and stories how Hearst tried to stop the films release, but I'll let you read them for yourself on IMDB or Wikipedia. 

So, what's all the hullabaloo about? Camera angles? Clever narrative tricks? Techniques so apparent that they actually interfere with the story? Is this a film that nobody but a film student could ever love? 

Nope. I really liked it. Now, I will say that the story wasn't all that compelling. It kept my interest, and was very well written, but it's not the "main feature". So much of the story is told with how Orson filled the screen. You could have the audio off and never be unsure what the character's relationship was. Every scene was laid out artistically. It's hard to explain. 

And, if you are not paying attention to what he was doing, you could miss much of it. I was a little surprised how much I enjoyed watching Citizen Kane. Now, I do own the film, but I wouldn't have purchased it for myself. In truth, the story and acting do not distinguish Kane, and that is what I respond to in cinema, but still, AMRU 4.

Red Dust (1932)

Clark Gable is the hunky proprietor of a rubber plantation in Indochina. Gene Raymond (not the Match Game guy) and Mary Astor are an educated, proper couple. He surveys the ranch while she gets plowed by our man Clark. Jean Harlow is the whore on the run, who knows what goes on. 

Ah, to be Clark Gable in pre-code Hollywood. 

This film has it all: racism, adultery, prostitution, more racism. Not sure where the red dust fits in. There were dust storms, maybe it was red. It looked grey to me. 

Jean Harlow had the famous water barrel scene, where she bathes, presumably nude, in the plantations drinking water. According to legend, she stood up to reveal her hoo-ha's and said "This one's for the boys in the lab". That footage does not seem to exist. Here's another tid-bit I learned from IMDb: during the filming, Jean Harlow's husband committed suicide. She took a leave of absence, and when she returned her revealing outfits were gone. In five years she would be dead. That girl had a sad life. 

Mary Astor had an interesting quote about actors: There are five stages in the life of an actor: "Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor Type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?" I just found that funny. 22 years after her death, we are squarely in the Who's Mary Astor zone. Personally, if I were Clarkie, I wouldn't have given her a second look. Jean Harlow was on the set, after all. Maybe I'd feel differently if I lived on a plantation in the middle of a rainy jungle usually devoid of women. 

And I'm no Clark Gable. I hope he wore his rubbers. 

AMRU 3.5.

City Lights (1931)

The Tramp falls for a blind flower girl. She mistakes him for a rich man. He continues the charade to gain her favor. He tries to earn money to help her out and pay for an operation to restore her sight. But if she has the operation, what then? 

This is how silent films were made. No ridiculous over acting or paper-think plots here. Made years into the age of talkies, Charlie Chaplin made the conscious decision to keep the tramp silent. 

Still, I have to say, it was a little tedious to watch. It ran about an hour and a half. The sight gags were cool, but I've seen them before. Mostly by people imitating the man, but still. Maybe if I get used to the genre I'll get into it more. We'll see. 

I learned that Hitler modeled his mustache after the Tramp thinking it would endear him to his people, even though he mistakenly believed Chaplin to be Jewish. That was an interesting choice, looking back. A fiery, antisemitic dictator trying to channel a silent tramp he thought was Jewish. Go figure. Hey, and the blind girl (whom Chaplin disliked) married Cary Grant for about a year. I love IMDb!

Now, where did the title come from? Yes, it was set in a city, but lights of any kind didn't play any role in the story. AFI called it the number one romantic comedy. I say it was cute. Maybe worth another viewing. AMRU 3.5.

You Can't Take it With You (1938)

The winner of Best Picture and Best Director, this offbeat comedy is about a family that chooses to do what they want over what they should do. How they have enough money to buy food is a mystery.

The story centers around young Alice (Jean Arthur) being the rebel of the family (she actually has a "job"!) and falling in love with owners son, Tony (James Stewart). The problem is that Tony's company is trying to evict Alice and her band of nuts from the family homestead. Drew's great-uncle Lionel Barrymore plays grandpa. 

Because of the sentimentality of Frank Capra's films, they were sometimes labeled "Capra-corn". Here is a great example. There were interesting scenes and clever dialog, but come on! I think they went a little bit over the top trying to show how eccentric they were. Characters wrestling, throwing darts, painting, doing ballet, while fireworks were being set off, all at the same time! Reminds me of my old dorm room days. And in the end, all problems are solved by singing "Polly Wolly Doodle". Maybe this makes sense during a depression. I hope I don't find out. 

One thing that struck me was the ages of the characters. Young Alice was played by 38 year old Jean Arthur. Her big sister was played by 15 year old Ann Miller. And Gramps was only 22 years Jean's senior. But it worked. Lionel looked to be 100, Jean Arthur could have easily passed for 24, and Ann Miller didn't look like any teen. 

Nice to watch once, but wholly unremarkable. Frank got a best picture, but not from me. AMRU 3.

The Lost World (1925)

In 1925 stop motion photography was cutting edge stuff. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story of an island where dinosaurs still lived provided the perfect setting to exploit this technique. Moviegoers never saw anything like it. 

Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery), a respected scientist, tries to convince his colleagues of this island and is ridiculed. His BFF Maple White (Maple White?) was lost on a previous expedition so circumstances have the bombastic Prof, a newspaper reporter, Maple's supposedly attractive daughter, and a cast of racial stereotypes go a-huntin'. 

I have to be perfectly honest. I fell asleep during the movie. I seem to have little tolerance for silent movies what with the overacting and smack-you-in-the-head story line. One must respect this film for it's groundbreaking special effects, and that's hard to do in an age where people say the dinos in Jurassic Park "look fake". 

But it's interesting to compare this film with King Kong, made just eight years later. Arguably the addition of sound made a larger impact than any visual effect. One is a film for the ages, the other a snooze-fest. Incidentally, the only connection between these two films are the dinosaur models and technique used in both. I thought the same person did the special effects. Not true. 

The copy I watched was bad VCR tape. Maybe I will see this movie again, if a quality copy lands in my hands, but I won't be going out of my way to find it. A very generous AMRU 3.

King Kong (1933)

Forth movie mentioned in the song Science Fiction/Double Feature. The classic gorilla finds girl, gorilla loses girl, girl's friends drug and kidnap gorilla to use in a New York side show story. It's the classic tale.

Robert Armstrong plays Carl Denham, a risk-taking movie director who learns of an uncharted island off Africa's coast (Google Earth was in pre-beta back then). He needs a lead actress so at the last minute he nabs the homeless waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). Every damsel needs a hero, and Fay's is Seaman John Driscol, played by Bruce Cabot, who apparently was a robot in real life. Oh, and by the way, Fay Wray was HOT! 

Many of the models of the dinosaurs and the animation techniques came from the 1925 silent film The Lost World, taken from the Arthur Conan Doyle story. Guess which movie I do next. Silent films are weird. 

But, let's touch on the silly, shall we? All this has been pointed out before, but what the hell. If you are going to build a giant wall to keep giant monsters out, WHY BUILD A GIANT DOOR FOR THEM TO GET THROUGH? If a giant ape can scale the Empire State Building, WHY CAN'T IT SCALE A WALL BARELY TALLER THAN ITSELF? And while we are bringing logic into the conversation, why live on a tiny part of a giant island populated by monsters? That was fun, wasn't it? Seriously, it wasn't? Not even a little? Oh, bother. 

This movie is great. I watched it on an old VCR tape and I'm dying to see it fully restored in high-def. The action is intense, the story interesting, the pacing great, and Fay Wray's wardrobe pre-code. 

King Kong held the record at the time for the biggest opening in history and is credited with saving RKO from bankruptcy. AFI lists it as the forth best film in the category of Fantasy and it's ranked 11th in IMDB's list in the category of Horror. In my ranking, it's higher. I love this movie. AMRU 5.0.

Adam's Rib (1949)

Adam (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda (Katharine Hepburn) are married attorneys who find themselves on the opposite side of a headline grabbing court case. It seems a man was fooling around on his wife, she found out, found him with his lady-friend, and shot him. 

Tracy, sensing familiarity, takes his case. Hepburn, sensing irony, takes hers. Now, I love these two actors, really I do, but what must have been going through their minds? Imagine Tracy's wife going to this movie and saying to their two children "That's your bum of a father and the trollop he flashes around town. Today she is apparently AGAINST philandering husbands!" Unbelievable. 

I don't want to blow the story, but suffice it to say little in this court case played out vaguely the same as it would in a world that resembled reality. Also, I saw little chemistry between the two leads. Tracy at one point becomes so enraged at Hepburn that the movie loses what little humor it had. 

I liked their songwriter neighbor who is unabashedly woo'ing Hepburn right in front of Tracy. What a douche. He was wonderful. Also, I had a moment when Tracy and Hepburn were going about their daily life and one of them lit their stove. I thought for a moment, two high-powered lawyers and that's the only stove they can afford?, before I realized that in 1949, that WAS a good stove. 

Judy Holliday was great in a small role as the accused and abused wife but this wasn't Tracy or Hepburn's best work. AFI called this the seventh best romantic comedy ever. It's not a bad film by any means, but if I see this movie again it would be to figure out why others are so high on it. AMRU 3.