Stalag 17

The granddaddy of all POW pictures, Stalag 17 (1953) is that rare oddity: a classic and a "cult" picture. Blending comedy with serious subject matter and tense drama, it can easily be recommended to anyone who enjoys mystery, intrigue and solid character work.

“Stalag” refers to one of the German POW camps in which American, British and Russians were housed during World War II, number 17b being primarily American. Unlike the grim concentration and death camps, stalag prisoners were covered by the Geneva Convention, under which enemy soldiers were to be fed and not abused, nor were they eligible for slave labour. Thus, you get a large number of young men who, although deprived and living in uncertain conditions, spent years without news of the outside world and without productive activity, and clustered in crowded conditions with strangers and without clear leaders.

This movie is Billy Wilder’s take on a popular Broadway play written by two survivors of Stalag 17. Wilder, a former refugee from Nazi Germany, lost both of his parents to the concentration camps, so his hatred for the German fascists is articulate and immense. However, he, like the authors of the play, realized that the situation was also filled with strong characters and gallows humour. It is this expert co-operation of menace and humour that makes Stalag 17 a unique picture.

The plot focuses on a particularly tense Christmas, during which, after a failed escape plan, the men begin to realize that there is a Nazi spy amongst them. Naturally, they assume the guilt of J.J. Sefton (Oscar winner William Holden), an unlikable and wily inmate who has no friends, only customers. As the plot unravels, the guilt and appearance of guilt shifts and sways, and the tension mounts as the comedy melts away.

This is a film I have enjoyed over and over, and look forward to seeing many, many more times. In fact, this movie has made my Top 100 films of all time, and it is unlikely it will be toppled.

However, Stalag 17 may not be to all tastes. The overt (and sometimes dated) comedy may upset some people who are sensitive about the sanctity of the subject matter. In the end, though, the comedy works within the confines of an American POW camp, and the monotony of life there makes one picture the hijinks we and the people we know might have gotten up to under such conditions. Further, the comedy is always underscored with the horrors of war and the constant threat faced by POWs in Europe.

It would be a mistake to tie this film in with the less reputable Hogan’s Heroes TV sitcom of a similar setting. The TV show was not, as common lore would tell you, based on this film, and the artistic accomplishments of the two are as different as Monet is from “The Garbage Pail Kids” trading cards.

Stalag 17 was released on DVD in a “Special Collector’s Edition” last March, and includes a “behind the scenes” featurette, and a documentary on the memories and experiences of Stalag 17’s real survivors. The audio commentary leaves much to be desired (which is understandable as the participants are all in their 80s, and the film was made over fifty years ago), but the transfer is as crisp and sharp as any I have seen.

All in all, its exciting performances, amusing and snappy script, and its ability to inspire tension beyond the initial viewing all make Stalag 17 a truly must-see picture.

Kinky Boots.

What a relief.

I have big feet. I often say I have drag queen feet, which is probably a bit dramatic. I have size 11 feet, and I know how difficult it is to find a great pair of heels. (And yeah, before anyone comments, I know my foot size is all in proportion. It’s not like I’m 5’5” – I am 6 feet tall.)
Kinky Boots (2005) is the story of Charlie Price, who a man who wears grubby tennis shoes when his father says you can tell a lot about a man by what kind of shoes he wears. Charlie is finally about to start his life in London with his (predictably) uptight girlfriend. Just as he arrives in London, he gets news that his father has died back in his Midlands hometown. He returns to the Price Shoe Factory, a sinking behemoth of a wing-tip shoe factory which has been in his family for four generations. A Price shoe is built to last a lifetime, but the factory loses money when, in the 21st century, the shopping public is more interested in buying cheaper, lower quality shoes with a built-in obsolescence.

Charlie is suddenly saddled with the unenviable task of “making people redundant” (the British euphemism for firing people – North America’s version of “victim of cutbacks,” or “laid off.”). When he goes to the warehouse and discovers a huge order of shoes that were not bought, as promised, by a vendor, the next step is to shut the factory. He is upset by being the end of the line – the last portrait on the wall.

In a last-ditch effort to unload his huge inventory, he goes to London. There, he happens to meet Lola, a drag queen with sore feet and a snapped stiletto. In a flash of creativity, he decides to change the product of the Price Shoe Factory to cater exclusively to men dressed as women. With Lola’s help, he designs fabulous shoes that are larger and reinforced with steel to support a man’s weight. Fabulous by drag queen standards, maybe – garish by other’s.

Lola is an amazing character. She is not just a caricature of a drag queen, but a gay man who feels his best dressed as a woman. (To clarify: he is not a transvestite. He looks way too good to not be drag royalty.) She is portrayed with sensitivity and humour by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and if he isn’t already on your radar, should be an actor to pay attention to in the future. His portrayal of Lola’s kindness, wit, and mannerisms was fantastic. Music follows Lola, and that might be one of the most wonderful things one could say about another person.

Charlie was played by Joel Edgerton, an actor I had not previously known, although apparently he was in two Star Wars movies. Naughty geek, me, for not recognizing him. Of course, for me, his likeness to Conan O’Brien in Kinky Boots was distracting, but beside that, he was also good.

Charlie and Lola’s relationship was interesting, since Charlie couldn’t decide if he was comfortable around Lola, what level of respect she deserved, or how to treat her in public. On that level, Kinky Boots was a great little vignette of gender issues, and how one’s gender defines where one belongs and how one is treated.

I liked this movie. It was sweet, sometimes to the point of being treacly, but bearable. And, mercifully, neither drag queen movie staple songs “It’s Raining Men,” nor “I Will Survive” made an appearance, but they did use Space’s “Female of the Species,” and Kirsty MacColl’s “In These Shoes?”, two excellent picks.

Pygmalion

“With a little bit of luck,” I will “get me to the church on time,” and see the famous way that “the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” Ah! My Fair Lady! I am not sure there is anyone left out there who hasn’t seen the play or 1964 big screen musical (starring the delightful Rex Harrison and the acceptable Audrey Hepburn), or even had the pleasure to participate in a production of this extravaganza.

However, it really is too bad that the lush Technicolor 1960s American version should so replace the play as written, and, in turn, the lovely and muted 1938 British version.

Because at least one of these versions (stage, screen, or literary) is known to almost everybody on earth (or at least the English speaking portions), either through tenth grade English class or idle Easter Sunday channel surfing, the plot should be well known to all. Inspired by the Greek myth of a sculptor, Pygmalion, who becomes so enamoured by his beautiful ivory creation, Galatea, that he forsakes all real women and prays for his creation to come to life. In sum, in an opposite image of Frankenstein, the artist/maker becomes obsessed with the perfect creation of his own hand.

George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” has become far more famous than its original Greek predecessor. In his version, which successfully seeks to stress not only the inter-personal dynamics of such a pairing, but also the class gulfs that were inherent in Victorian England, the Pygmalion is Professor Henry Higgins, a wool-draped misanthropist phonetics specialist. His “work of art,” found and undertaken on account of a bet with his admirable and well-meaning associate Colonial Pickering, is a common flower gel from Convent Gardens, Eliza. The bet is that, within 6 months, the linguistic maestro can “pass this guttersnipe off as a duchess.” The artist’s relationship with his creation is one that he finds he cannot ignore, despite his insistence that he can do without her or anyone, but the ending(s) of the versions go in several directions. Do they, like Pygmalion and Galatea, fall in love and find their greatest desires fulfilled? Do watch and find out.

Pygmalion (1938) stars Leslie Howard, one of the most adorable and likeable male stars of his generation. It also introduces the striking and unique Wendy Hiller, who makes a believable and hearty Eliza Doolittle. Further, the supporting cast, in particular the dashing Scott Sunderland (Pickering) and the unsettling yet appealing Wilfrid Lawson (Alfred Doolittle), make dimensional subjects with which this Victorian world is peopled.

Pages upon pages ("sheets and sheets") could be wasted weighing the respective merits of the two major film versions, but really it largely comes down to opinions not only on whether a movie needs musical numbers, but also on casting choices. I hope to encourage viewers to see these films in concert, as both have unique charms and assets.

I adore both Rex Harrison and Leslie Howard, and I find them equally suited to this role (although Howard is, perhaps, in light of his younger age and paler complexion, a bit more believable). I prefer the performance of the young and tomboyish Wendy Hiller, who brings a certain roughness to the role of Eliza that was absent in the lovely and patrician Audrey Hepburn, thus making the 1938 Eliza’s emotional reactions that much more touching and significant. Both of the Alfreds (Lawson in 1938, and the remarkable Stanley Holloway in 1964), a character upon which the entirety of the play’s moral and philosophical explorations are centered, are wonderful in their own ways, with Lawson being the most serious and thought provoking of the two. Both Mrs. Pearces do their jobs, as do both Mrs. Higgins.


The greatest difference between the two versions in terms of characters, is in the casting and execution of Colonial Pickering. In the 1964 version, you may recall, the role was embodied in the sweet, but doddering, Wilfrid Hyde-White, an older, white-haired upper-class twit (albeit a gentle one). The 1938 version, however, has seen fit to provide Higgins with a rival for the romantic lead of 27A Wimpole Street.

Scott Sunderland, seemingly a non-actor who was 55 when this picture was made (but looked nowhere past 45), is a culmination of all that is attractive in traditional British masculinity – good looks, smooth manners, charming smile, immaculate dress, and the air of one born to enough wealth to be extremely comfortable in the world over which he is a lord and master. A powerful, powerful combination. In this detail, while Sunderland is delightful and magnetic, one wonders if an older, less sexually appealing man may have worked out better. In the 1938 version, completely unlike the 1964 version, we are left wondering why Eliza doesn’t ditch both her sniveling swain Freddie and the petulant Higgins, and make for the Colonel. This dilemma, enhanced by an odd and palatable chemistry between Hiller and Sunderland in the final ensemble scene at the home of Mrs. Higgins, serves to confuse and frustrate the audience, and damages the main goal of the film, which is to get Higgins and Eliza together.

Still, since this flaw is caused by the force of Sunderland’s charms, and by the wholly realistic stature of his performance, it can only be a minor quibble against what is a high quality production of an enjoyable story.

It is the acting in this non-musical version, as well as the cracker-jack script (vetted personally by G.B. himself, work for which he unwillingly received the 1938 writing Oscar), that makes this version a classic and a pleasure, and I hope that it can take a more equal place beside its 1964 cousin as pure pleasure for lovers of romantic comedy. Further, it should take a higher place for students of class consciousness, for this is a facet largely excised from the later version, and I would recommend this version without reservation for teachers and students who want to see a more faithful rendering of the original play.

The 1938 Pygmalion should be available for rent or purchase from quality stores, and in well stocked libraries, and is available in both VHS and DVD formats.

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Panic!

This is a public service announcement. Please, for the sake of your mental health, do not see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005). I hated hated hated this movie. And yes, I did read the book. I don’t remember much of it, but I hope it turns out to be more memorable than this POS.

I don’t know if the dry British lit-humour just didn’t translate to the screen or what. I don’t think it was the cast. Martin Freeman was fine as Arthur, and the reason I went to see this snorefest in the first place. Who didn't fall in love with him as Tim Canterbury on "The Office"? Mos Def was very good as Ford Prefect. There was a stupid effing depressed robot thing that simply was not funny. I wanted to kill Sam Rockwell, and for the first time ever, Zooey Deschanel’s wide-eyed cuteness made me angry. How can a movie like this make me angry? It wasn’t Hotel Rwanda (2004)! It was a waste of time.

Storylines were disconnected. The love story was lacklustre to say the least (as this implied there was still some lustre, I’m loath to use this description). Slapstick was overdrawn. There were bits that were reminiscent of Wild Wild West (1999). Zaphod has two heads! Zaphod has three arms! Oh, people! It’s so stinkin’ funny! Look at him! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Ah. Oh… oh.

My favourite part was when Ford and Arthur went to a pub in the AM and ordered 6 pints of beer. I also think that was the funniest bit. It was 5 minutes from the opening titles. Oh, ye gods… I forgot about the opening titles. It was a chorus of dolphins singing “So long and thanks for the fish,” as a good-bye to earth. It went on.

When I saw this film in the theatre, I spent a huge chunk of time concentrating on prying a popcorn husk from between two of my molars with my tongue. I was actually disappointed once I’d extracted it, because then I had to pay attention to the film.

I know this movie has been out for a while, and you've probably seen it already, either in theatres or on DVD, if you were any way inclined. Still, if I can dissuade one person, I've done my job.

The Kid

University has stripped me of my faith in religion, state and flag, and the inevitable process of growing up has pulled the wool from my eyes in terms of parents, school and relationships. If there is one thing I revere, however… one person I understand as Immortal… it would have to be Charles Spencer Chaplin. Chaplin, the endurable deity of the Cinema Temple and the Silver Screen. The man who proves that one does not have to be infallible to be an idol.

I say all this not to attempt to convince you to worship the man as I do, but merely to counteract any charges that I am biased in this review. There is no need to charge me thus. I am perfectly well aware of my bias.

That is why it has taken me this long to broach the topic of Chaplin. I feel no desire constantly to lay out positive, gushing reviews, time after time, so it took some doing to pick a Chaplin a film to cover. City Lights (1931), his most perfect film in my view, for example, needs no review. It is a classic, akin to Scripture. What kind of article would that make?

Therefore, I have hit on the silent film The Kid (1921), Chaplin’s first feature film involving the Tramp. This film is certainly a classic, but it is a flawed classic. This state is what makes it a perfect subject for a review.

The Kid was inspired by the loss of Chaplin’s first son, Norman Spencer, in infancy. His marriage to Mildred Harris, his first child bride, was failing, and he was entering a depressive state, both mentally and professionally, and was under the weight of a massive block. Then, by chance, Chaplin happened to see a stage show that featured a bizarre and precocious little child dancer by the name of Jackie Coogan, and, realizing this boy was the answer to his prayers for a muse, a deal was struck and a picture developed.

The result was “six reels of joy,” the picture “with a smile, and perhaps a tear.” The picture starts out with a poor and abandoned unwed mother who is coldly dumped from her charity hospital refuge with her newborn son. Despondent, she leaves the child in a limousine and heads off to commit suicide; however, she cannot kill herself and she returns to collect her son. Finding that the car has been stolen, she is struck with guilt and horror, for her child is now irrevocably lost to her.

Enter the Tramp. Taking his morning constitutional, the funny little man in the strangely pompous and deplorable suit, and with the even odder walk, comes down his skid-row alley with the nonchalance of a duke in Bath. Opening an old sardine tin, he carefully selects the best of his salvaged cigarette butts, and lights up. He is the very image of all that is poor and meager, as well as all that echoes the Victorian ideal of gentlemanly leisure.

Finally, a noise catches his attention. The baby, discarded by the crooks who stole the limousine, lies next to a dust bin. After some very desperate attempts to ditch the burden, the Tramp finds the note: “Please love and care for this orphan child.” That is all it takes, for the Tramp always falls in love with anything as defenseless and pitiful as himself. (See for example, the marvelous A Dog’s Life (1918), one of Chaplin’s best shorts.)

Five years pass. The Tramp, despite his slum apartment (which was clearly torn from Chaplin’s own childhood memories of the impoverished lanes of East London), he has become a caring and responsible guardian for the boy. Jack, a beautiful and utterly charming tow-headed angel/devil, returns the care back to his small and powerless father. Their domestic bliss is palatable and wonderful, and our hearts glow when we see the chemistry between them.

Soon, of course, the boy gets sick and the county steps in, leading to that magnificent and iconic scene of the Tramp fighting to keep his son in the face of bureaucratic brutality. Small and weak, the Tramp nonetheless slays demons (or at least knocks flat a cop and a social worker), scales the roof tops, leaps to a speeding truck, and saves his son from a horrible and bleak life as a poor-house orphan. Truly, there can be nothing more wrenching as, without dialog, we see the pleading boy cry over and over again, “Oh, I want my daddy! Please! I want my daddy!” And there is no greater crescendo in film history than the moment that the two are reunited.

This scene – the triumph of the common man against state interference and cruelty – is, by rights, the heart, soul and guts of this picture, and, even after nearly ninety years, it has barely lost an ounce of its power. The major error in this film is that this is not the last impression of The Kid.

After the Tramp saves the boy, and they are cast into the streets as runaways from the Law (and we find out that the boy’s mother is now rich and seeking out her child after finding the note in her own handwriting in the Tramp’s flat), the boy is stolen by a reward hunter. Despairing and alone, the Tramp haunts the city searching for his lost child. Finally, all hope lost, he sits on his former stoop and falls into a deep sleep. What ensues may be one of the clumsiest and disturbing dream sequence debacles ever to mar an otherwise magical film.

Chaplin was a romantic, and his artistic impulses were always passionate, but not always technically correct, and The Kid fell prey to a flight of fancy.

The fact that he dreams of an egalitarian and peaceful paradise in which all the inhabitants (even the authorities) live in harmony, and where food is free and love is all around, does not shock in a Chaplin film. Frankly, given the talent for dance and whimsy that Chaplin possessed, this sequence might not even have been all that bad on its own. Rather, it is the deeper significance of the dream sequence in The Kid that repels and disappoints.

In this dream, which only barely connects with the rest of the film, the Tramp (and his alter ego, Chaplin) lives in perfect peace and innocence. Then “sin creeps in.”

This sin comes in the form of a 12-year-old actress, played by none other than the woman soon to be known as Lita Grey Chaplin.

At 12, her beauty had so interested him that The Kid’s blemish was created just for her, and the result is a psycho-analytic nightmare, and an all-too-insightful vision of the future. The girl, tempted by Satan, lures and entraps the Tramp (Chaplin), causing his life to be ruined in the form of legal troubles and exile. Given the consequences of Chaplin’s later disastrous marriage to the 16-year-old Lita, this dream sequence plays now as one of the most bizarre (and uncomfortable) auteur shows-of-hand ever filmed, with the possible exception of Woody Allen’s otherwise wonderful Manhattan (1979).

I have seen The Kid at least 50 times, including twice on the big screen, and it is always a joy to introduce new people to its emotional highs and lows, and to hear whole new audiences laugh uproariously at the clever comedy bits. However, every time I see it, amidst the delight, I must give a small cringe at this dream sequence, and every time I am reminded that hubris and flaws, even in an artist I admire so much, must sometimes come out.

However, it remains as a reminder, too, that the romantic enthusiasm and idealism that so disfigured The Kid also created the moving plea for sanity at the end of his first talkie, the anti-Nazi film The Great Dictator (1940), and I am reconciled.

Once upon a time, one did not have to specify who Chaplin was. He was a force, like Pan or Eros. Chaplin was the king of all he surveyed. And he got that way by following his instincts.

No one thing is perfect. Flaws make a film, as much as does the beauty. The Kid, despite its impassioned and discomforting error in judgement, is as deeply beautiful as it is deeply flawed. It is a picture with both laughs and tears, and a great deal of humanity that resonates now and will most likely never fail to charm an audience of any era.

Brick.

Film Noir is a subgenre of the Crime plot. Other Crime subgenres include Murder Mystery, Caper, and Courtroom. The differences depend on the protagonist. (Detective, Master Criminal, and Lawyer, respectively.) Film Noir has the most complex main character. It is a story told from the “[point of view] of a protagonist who may be part criminal, part detective, part victim of a femme fatale.” (McKee 1997: 82)

My opinions have been divided about Film Noir movies. While I love their characteristically highly-stylised dialogue and cinematography, I usually find the plots difficult to follow and the gumshoe sporadically indiscernible with his street-wise fast-talk.


In this sense, Brick (2005) was all it set out to be: a modern Film Noir. I could write that there are twists on the convention, but really, there aren’t. The only difference is, I suppose, that instead of a professional private dick hunting for baddies, in Brick, it’s a high school student, Brendan. The “brass” is Vice Principal Trueman. Brendan is still pining for his ex-girlfriend, who got caught up with the bad element of their school and is found dead. He follows clues, pisses off some muscle, becomes embroiled in a drug war, and gets the bejesus beaten out of him more than once. Oh, he throws some good punches, too, but the other guys probably didn’t end up with blood pooling in their stomachs.

The Noir plot points are there, and so is the stylish photography. High-angle shots, disregard of the law of thirds, and lots and lots of backlighting (which I think is another nod to classic Film Noir shadows, but the modern product in this case is silhouette) are very striking in how simple it is for a director and a DOP to disorient their audience. The filmmakers also tamper with film speed/continuity to illustrate Brendan’s dis-ease, with great results.

Brendan is deftly played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, of TV’s 3rd Rock From the Sun “fame.” I remember being impressed by him when he was on that show. He played a grizzled space traveller trapped in a teenager’s body with surprising sensitivity. Now, all growned up, he cuts a fine figure, and is sometimes reminiscent of Heath Ledger. In Brick, he’s a wise-cracking, slouchy, broken-hearted dude. He makes us root for him to succeed, especially when we see him persevere when his face gets progressively more rearranged.

The femmes fatale are very good. There is one cool thespian queen who enslaves freshman, and another nymph with a 40s fashion sensibility. Both hold a certain allure for Brendan, but he doesn’t allow himself to get too close, because he doesn’t trust them.

Brick is, at times, hard to follow in plot and dialogue, which is consistent with my usual complaints about Films Noir, but this main character of Brendan was amazing. He’s cool, dignified, subtle, clever, and fallible. I find this especially charming when I see that the author’s only other credit is for a short called Evil Demon Golfball From Hell!!! (1996)

It’s available on August 8th on DVD. If you’re a Film Noir fan, do rent this one to see how it stacks up to the old classics.