February 18, 2009

Cinema file: Brother Can You Spare 11 Dollars?

NewYorkology film columnist Tim McGonagle was orphaned in a revival theater in Boston, Mass. in the mid-1970s. While other kids were outside playing tag, he was busy absorbing the films of Buster Keaton, Akira Kurosawa and the inappropriate-for-his-then-age, John Cassavettes. Currently he contributes to the “Noir of the Week” film website and maintains a blog of his own. Here are his picks of upcoming cinema offerings in New York City.

One industry resilient to the economic malaise of the Great Depression was the major film studios producing movies that would eventually be known as the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” Looking for inexpensive escapism, Americans kept the box office cash registers ringing despite the economic woes of the 1930s.

While we’re not in a depression presently, the recession is making some think twice about going out for an evening of pricey cocktails or a fancy dinner. Luckily Film Forum has decided to provide us New Yorkers with a four-week collection of Depression-era films they have dubbed “Breadlines & Champagne” concluding March 5. There are plenty of double bills in this collection to get the most bang for your buck with some fantastic pre-Code and Depression-era films. Some of the great titles coming up in the next two weeks include Scarface, It Happened One Night, Little Caesar, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, King Kong, 42nd Street and Blonde Crazy just to name a few. Friday night has two films for the price of one that are great examples of entertaining and socially conscious melodramas of the time:

Dead End (1937)
William Wyler directs this interesting film that’s part melodrama, part social commentary on class strata, a little bit gangster film and also features funny-speaking adolescent street toughs who end every other sentence with phrases like “…yea why don’t cha?”

The film takes place in New York’s East River district where Joel McCrey and Sylvia Sidney play locals trying to scrape by in tough times. The neighborhood gets an unexpected visitor named ‘Baby Face’ Martin (Humphrey Bogart) who is on the lam but trying to reconnect with his old neighborhood roots after gaining infamy as a ruthless gangster.

Their three lives intertwine within the confines of an amazing urban set designed by Art Director Richard Day, where dilapidated tenement buildings rub elbows with new posh apartment buildings occupied by the rich. The clash of class and cultures provide plenty of juicy conflict between the impoverished East River locals and the wealthy new residents squeezing them out. Dead End is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane) using the urban landscape, distinct camera movement and exceptional lighting. The standouts of the film are Bogart’s cutthroat but conflicted mobster and the cast of real New York City street kids (many of whom would later gain notoriety as the “Dead End Kids” and “The Bowery Boys” in numerous films) who worship him. (Although filmed on a set, the movie’s locale is pegged at 56th Street and Sutton Place in Chuck Katz’ book “Manhattan on Film.”)

Three on a Match (1932)

Not quite the ensemble film it’s billed as, Three on a Match is however a wild ride you won’t soon forget.

The story follows three women who reunite after losing contact with one another between grade school and adulthood. Ann Dvorak plays a restless woman in a marriage she feels trapped in despite a supportive and successful husband (Warren William.) With her husband’s blessing, she takes a cruise ship to Europe with their young son to alleviate her depression, but ends up sowing her wild oats in a booze-fueled tryst with a two-bit gambler (Lyle Talbot) she meets on the ship. They run off to Europe, with Junior and her childhood friends, Joan Blondell and a young Bette Davis, come to William’s aid to assist in getting the boy back.

The story turns even more lurid when after the boy is returned, William divorces Dvorak, marries Blondell and the debt-riddled Talbot ends up kidnapping Junior to collect a ransom to pay his debts to keep the mob from ending his life. When Talbot doesn’t have the stomach to see the kidnapping through, in steps a young Humphrey Bogart, (a gangster owed twenty grand from Talbot,) to orchestrate the delivery of the ransom.

The ending is a violent shocker and the seedy substance of the film is obviously pre-Code with its racy content and adult themes. Dvorak is tragically triumphant in Three on a Match, with Blondell interjecting comic relief at points (especially her scene in reform school,) while successfully towing the dramatic line to keep the story moving in this dark film. Sadly Davis is underutilized in this film unless you count the beach scene where she’s in a bathing suit that exhibits her comely figure. Clocking in at a lean 63 minutes, Three on a Match has plenty of lurid action and melodrama that would have been the perfect escape for a Depression-era moviegoer’s reality outside the theatre.

Also going on in film around the city …

The Searchers (1956) at MoMA through February 20

In Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt, Director Fritz Lang is quoted as saying, with regard to filming in Cinemascope, “Oh, it wasn’t meant for human beings. Just for snakes - and funerals.” Apparently Lang never saw John Ford’s The Searchers. Arguably one of the greatest westerns ever made, John Wayne is gripping as the revenge driven, anti-hero Ethan Edwards. Aesthetically the film is in the cannon of all time greats as Ford used Monument Valley in Arizona and Utah to stunning effect while incorporating the widescreen format (it was actually filmed with Cinemascope’s very similar relative VistaVision) to capture breathtaking shots. Missing this one on the big screen would make the Duke turn in his grave.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) at Anthology Film Archives on February 21 and 22

Director Carl Dreyer provides some of the most stunning shots in film history in his epic interpretation of the martyr’s timeless story. Dreyer truly changed the way film looked with this masterpiece, with his oblique camera angles, symbolic lighting and haunting close-ups of Maria Falconetti. This silent picture is an avant-garde masterpiece that still mesmerizes 80 years after its release. The chance to see Falconetti’s brilliant, expressive performance in a theatre is an opportunity any film buff worth his or her salt would not pass up.

Film and Discussion: The Black List: Volume One (2008)
Brooklyn Museum on February 22

Film critic Elvis Mitchell and documentarian Timothy Greenfield-Sanders interview a most impressive and diverse group of African-American entertainers, scholars, poets, athletes and politicians of influence regarding the state of the “blacklist” in the new century. A discussion with director Greenfield-Sanders will follow the screening.

Image source: Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak and Joan Blondell in “Three on a Match” at Film Forum.

February 18, 2009 2:24 PM in Cheap Stuff, Downtown, Midtown, Museums, Sightsology

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