Black Narcissus
Anyone who has followed my Posts and reviews knows that I was delighted to discover a producer/director duo of filmmakers from England named The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Many of their films from the 40s appear in the 1001 book and I now consider them to be the very best British filmmakers ever. My favorite of their films that I have now seen is “Black Narcissus”. The film follows a group of British Nuns trying to run an Anglican school and hospital on top of a remote Himalayan location during the time that Britain was colonizing India. I had recently made a personnel visit to this location in India, so to me this film held a special interest. While the plot revolves around the difficulties, both physical and spiritual of running the school, the film is most intently concerned with the inner, repressed sexual tensions that surely exist within the souls of Nuns. The Anglican Church has decided to appoint a young formally non-religious but intelligent nun as Mother Superior to this difficult task. They also send with her their most confused and troublesome Nun. Once they arrive their interaction with important subliminal characters works to increase their unease, raising their suppressed feeling. There is the English handyman who is hired to renovate and repair. He is Mr. Dean, and when we first see him he is shirtless and hairy, seemingly intent on attracting the carnal interests of the Nuns. There is also an Indian General, decked in decadent jewelry and treated like a god by the locals. Then we have two teenage characters, played by the Indian Sabu and the,” painted as Indian”, Jean Simmons, who show us what natural open feelings truly are when they are not corrupted by religion. This is one of the most anti-religious movies I have ever seen, but it tricked its conservative censors of the time into thinking it is an historical epic concerning the bravery and strength of missionary work. The film itself was filmed in extremely sharp and bright technicolor and today needs to be seen in full HD. The filmmakers produced the film within extravagant movie sets and the landscapes through brilliant paintings. India is a country of bright colors and this film does it proud. The colors almost explode off of the screen. The Archers also use extreme close ups as a way of showing the inner unspoken emotions of the characters. There is erotic sexual tension throughout most scenes. The acting is also superb. Deborah Kerr is brilliant as the Mother Superior as she succeeds in portraying an inner strength and confusion that is needed for her role. The star of this movie may well be Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth, who is the troubled Nun who goes insane at the end of the film. The scene in which she attempts to murder Kerr is done to music and each movement seems to conduct the melody along. The reason for this is that the Archers first studied the music and then staged the scene to its beat. This is a ploy, that twenty years later was used to great success by Sergio Leone in, “Once upon a time in the West”. The movie ends with the Nuns, admitting defeat and leaving the mountain. Many have stated that this ending symbolizes the eventual fall of the British Empire in India. I believe that it actually shows the failure of a strict stringent religion in penetrating warm emotional eastern cultures. A lesson that is still relevant today.
It’s a Wonderful Life
“A Christmas Carole”, is a famous oft filmed Christmas story about how an Angel shows an evil man the terrible effects of his actions, thereby changing him for the better. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the inverse of this story and in being that inverse, succeeded in becoming the most beloved Christmas film ever made. We are given a good man who is driven to suicide because of the actions of other more selfish people around him. The Angel in this movie, shows our hero what the world would be like if he had never existed. This revelation causes him to celebrate his wonderful life rather than end it. I believe that the reason the movie is so beloved is the fact that all of us want to believe that we do some good and that the world would be a worse place without our existence. We the audience identify ourselves with James Stewart who plays the hero, George Bailey. The movie was directed by Frank Capra, who always knew how to re-create his love for the American way of life. Curiously the movie was initially condemned by the FBI, due to its portrayal of the banks as being the root of evil. They thought it was a communist propaganda film in disguise. In actual fact it is a celebration of white, Christian, small town America. There are no blacks, Jews or Hispanics in this world. Even within the Bank’s villains. It is an insular world that is as close minded as it is morally superior. The fact that so many people love it is a testament to our longing for a simpler and less complicated world. Initially Stewart’s character wants to leave the stifling small town confides that he grew up in and longs to see the outside world. He wants to study architecture and build wonderful structures to help the wider scope of America. It is his small town upbringing and parental pressure that stops his dreams and forces him to be limited and live within the confines of this little world. He falls in love and raises a family, but deep down we feel that the perfect wife and children he has created is not enough. He longs for his dreams to be fulfilled. When he realizes that his self-sacrifice may not result in the limited success that he sets for himself, he reaches despair and wants to end his life. I question whether this despair is due to the evil bank manager or due to his lost dreams. In any case it takes a fanciful visit by a guardian angel to show him how everyone is worse in the world if he did not exist. The feel and personality of this angel looks like a direct copy of the very same angel the Archers from England, the previous year, created in their much superior fantasy comedy, “A matter of Life and Death”. This film is still a great success in instilling a feeling of goodness and the need to be good, into its audience. For that it should be applauded.
Gilda
Gilda is the sexy Rita Hayworth and with a name that brings to mind visions of sparking gold. The movie that showcases her is a film noire classic. As in all films of this type, the movie includes a complex plot of deception and danger. Based in Argentina we have an anti-hero, played by the reliable Glen Ford, who is a cheat and a gambler. He gets involved with and receives the respect of an Argentinian Gangster who then hires him to run his casino. At this point in the film, we have no Hayworth and a happy relationship between the thief and the gangster. The gangster is acted with delightful menace by George Macready. He constantly carries a cane that is a sword, which emphasize the constant danger that he represents. It is however the appearance of Hayworth as the newly wed wife of the Gangster that makes this movie ultimately worth watching. This is the Hayworth of the posters soldiers and prisoners would keep hanging in their cells and lockers. This was the femme fetale of our dreams. There is a striptease scene in the movie involving only the removal of her elbow length glove, which is sexier than any modern, full striptease scenes shown in today’s modern cinema. She purred when she speaks and drives men crazy with her supple movements. The character Ford plays had a history with her, making her appearance as his partner’s wife, a life changing occurrence. The story then gets a bit complex adding German (Nazi?) criminals and Argentinian police to its convoluted plot. The ending is also much too neat and tidy for my liking. The performances of Macready and Hayworth are still electric and make for fascinating viewing.
Monsieur Verdoux
Charlie Chaplin was a silent film, comedic Genius and all of his silent comedies contained, within their main characters some version of the Tramp. In 1947, Chaplin, after receiving an inspiration from none other than Orson Wells, wrote, directed, Produced and composed a talking comedy about a mass murderer based on the true life Story of Henri Desire Landru. Landru was a true life Blue beard who married and then murdered for their inheritance, 10 widows. He dismembered their bodies before burning them. Why Chaplin considered this story to be the basis of a comedy may be explained in the fact that Wells, who wanted to make a serious rendition of the story, wanted Chaplin to play the main part. Chaplin had his interest piqued to play this mass murderer but as he was Chaplin, he wanted to show him as a sympathetic figure in a comedy. His reasoning was political as he was a rabid anti-war advocate and wanted to somehow show a disturbing correlation of the legalized mass murder of war with the horror of individual murder done by fiends. The result is that his fiend became a likable Chaplin character that has nothing to do with the tramp. Does it work? If the desire to make this murderer likable was the intent, then yes it does work. However while watching this movie, I kept trying to think of the victims who are constantly minimized in the movie. We are asked not to care at all for them so that we can take part in agreeing with Chaplain’s political message. I found this abhorrent and greatly disliked this well done professional movie. It is fascinating but also disturbing for all the wrong reasons. In addition, I found nothing funny within this supposed comedy. Chaplin should have stayed with the tramp.
Out of the Past
True Film Noire stories require some basic tenants of the genre to qualify. There needs to be an antihero with striking intelligence and a sad history, a Femme Fetale who is consistent and unavoidably gorgeous, a vicious and evil advisory who has feelings for the Femme Fetale and a story told through flashbacks. “Out of the Past”, checks all the boxes, has a terrific script, a wonderful director and a near perfect cast. The film also has a great noire title, because the genre if anything, is obsessed about the past. The story begins with a search for our anti-hero, who is an ex gumshoe trying to live a new life. The searchers find him, but unlike the previous year’s noir thriller, “The Killers”, do not kill him. Instead they send him back to his past. He goes there accompanied by his new, good and clueless girlfriend. During the car ride he recounts for her, his recent secret history. This is shown to us through flashbacks. We are then shown the other main characters. The Vicious gangster who sent for him, played with electrifying force by Kirk Douglas and the gorgeous babe who draws everyone together. Our hero is played by Robert Mitchum, who 20 plus years later would go on to play an older Phillip Marlow in a couple of updated Noire films from the 70s. Mitchum was the type of actor who acted old, no matter what age he really was. He has a world weary face and seemed to hunch whenever he moved forward. A low and slow growling voice was also his forte. These features were perfect for the Noire anti-hero. The flashbacks show Douglas hire Mitchum to find his ex-girlfriend after she stole his money and tried to kill him. Douglas professes to only want to find the money and the girl. Not to do her harm. We all know better, as does Mitchum. But he needs the money. Needless to say the gangster’s girlfriend is a conniving beauty and our hero falls head over heels in love with her. There is a brilliant scene where she basically confesses to her crimes on a boat with him and all he can say is that he does not care. He is driven to his doom and he knows it. That is Noire and this is a noire classic. The director of the movie is Jacques Tourneur who made his reputation directing brilliant B grade horror movies that were were made with a dark foreboding style. The same style used in Noire, works effortlessly for the story. Another thing that jumped out at me was the large amount of cigarettes that are smoked during the film. Everyone smokes here. The hero, the dame, the good girl and the villain. What Tourneur does with all this smoke is impressive. The smoke blows out as white bullets against the dark shadowy tones of the movie. There is one scene between Mitchum and Douglas that has both protagonist blow cigarette smoke into the faces of each other as if they were weapons. The forced happy ending seems a bit out of place but the rest of the movie is a film noire classic that delivers.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” is one of those sweet pleasant stories that leaves its viewers with less fear of dying that they may have had before seeing the film. It deals with a relationship of a ghost and a living person that first allows them to have real emotions with each other and then displays death as a welcome occurrence that succeeds in finally bringing them together. It is a love story that requires death to consummate the love. By being sweet and polite, the film makes this awareness of death as a thing not to be feared. The movie also allows us to believe that good people will receive a good end and bad people a bad end. This is a lovely message and I found myself enjoying the movie because of it. It has become the inspiration for many non-scary ghost stories ever since, such as 1990’s “Ghost”. The film follows its characters during a year that the good Mrs. Muir lives in a haunted house previously inhabited by Captain Greg who died in the house due to a simple household accident. As a ghost he likes his new tenant and lets her stay in the house. He also allows her to write his fascinating autobiography which he dictates to her during his ghostly appearances. This book becomes a best seller, thereby saving her financially and the ghost and woman fall in love during the writing of the book. Since this is true love, our lovable ghost, knowing his earthly limitations, decides to allow her to find a real man to marry by disappearing from the real world and causing her to forget every memory she had of him. Throughout the remainder of her live, she fails to finds true happiness and when she dies of old age they finally meet again to live happily and forever in the spiritual world. The acting is very good with both Gene Tierney as Mrs. Muir and Rex Harrison as the Captain giving believable and enjoyable performances. Watching this movie makes for a very pleasant 104 minutes.
Odd Man Out
“Odd Man Out”, is a film set in violent ridden Northern Ireland and concerns the fate of an IRA gang leader. The IRA is never mentioned but it is clear to everyone what “The Organization” of this film actually refers to. This film is not so much a political story but rather a dramatization on how people running away from danger get deserted by their friends. I found it to be a similar theme as the later Western, “high Noon”. James Mason who has just the correct handsome and sad face for the role, plays the gang leader named Johnny. Johnny we are shown initially wants to revert to negotiations and stop with the organization’s violence. His gang see this as a weakness and he is forced to continue with their plan to rob an English run Mill, so that the gang can acquire badly needed funds. During the robbery Mason kills the Mills cashier after getting shot himself. Then he is abandoned by his fleeing mates and searches refuge throughout the rest of the movie while the police conduct a manhunt. We are shown various characters who will not help him and were once his friends. From the painter who only wants to paint him before he dies to the Priest who wants to use him as a sacrificial lamb. There is also a snitch shown with a despicable flair and pretending to be an ally. The only person who wants and is willing to help him is his girlfriend who loves him dearly. It is a love that will require the ultimate sacrifice, because he is doomed from the beginning and the longer his desperate situation lasts, the more hopeless his situation becomes. We, the audience, watch this with fascination and are riveted by this confused man’s predicament. The movies director is the great Carole Reed. One of Britain’s great film makers. Reed had an uneven career who like Orson Wells made amazing movies in his youth, that he could never equal later on. This is one of his great achievements as we are made to care about Mason’s character and are saddened by his violent end. It is a fitting ending that makes us think about the frailty of humans. This is quite a movie.
1001 Movies before you die 