Gunga Din (1939)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Gunga Din (1939) – G. Stevens

Whoa! To watch Gunga Din (1939) in 2022 is to come face-to-face with both unrepentant imperialism and blatant racism – but the film is such a light-hearted adventure, one is tempted to ignore these things. Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. play sargeants in the British army stationed in India. Gunga Din is their Indian water-carrier.  The film splits somewhat evenly between hi-jinks involving the three leads (trying to trick Fairbanks into re-enlisting now that his tour of duty is coming to a close) and action-adventure as they encounter the Thugee cult of Kali-worshippers who aim to kill the Brits. This is a riff on the poem by Rudyard Kipling whose Din sacrifices himself for the regiment by warning them of an ambush with his bugle and dying when he attracts the attention of the baddies.  But the film really is problematic in so many ways.  Although there seem to be actual Indians among the cast, the Thugees do feature a number of actors in black-face (particularly their guru played by Eduardo Ciannelli). Mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada range stand in for India (not surprisingly). Din himself (also played by a white actor, Sam Jaffe) is infantilised throughout – Cary Grant is particularly patronising toward him, although perhaps unconsciously so.  The film probably couldn’t be made today and the only way to watch it is with one’s critical consciousness engaged. But it’s still so damned fun (indeed Spielberg seems to have borrowed some elements for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆  ½

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – F. Capra

Been a long time since I watched this but I felt in need of some political uplift!  Jimmy Stewart plays the naïve but sincere and morally right boys’ club leader who suddenly finds himself the junior senator from his rural state when the incumbent dies and the governor (a puppet for a evil machine) picks him as a pushover.  The machine run by news magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) already has the state’s senior senator (played by Claude Rains with perfect ambivalence) in his pocket and together they are pushing through some major graft – trying to get federal approval for a dam after they have conveniently bought up all the surrounding land, putting the deeds in dummy names.  Of course, Senator Jefferson Smith (Stewart) puts a crimp in their plans, first accidentally but then with moral purpose – but the machine uses all their evil power against him.  The highlight of the film is Smith’s long filibuster to stop himself from getting ejected from the Senate and to defeat the bill.  Director Frank Capra can be Capracorny at times but there are so many great supporting actors here (Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi, Eugene Pallette, Harry Carey, etc.) that he can’t really go wrong, despite the total emotional manipulation at play.  Of course, the film ends abruptly on a high note, with little chance to contemplate the realities of the situation.  But hey, this sort of fable where corruption is defeated by those who advocate that the government should care for the people is just what I needed!

  

Midnight (1939)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Midnight (1939) – M. Leisen

I thought I had thoroughly mined the screwball comedy genre (popular in the ‘30s & ‘40s) but I had missed this prime example, directed by Mitchell Leisen but written by Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder (all responsible for other screwballs with other partners).  Claudette Colbert (herself no stranger to the genre) plays a broke chorus girl just arrived in Paris (after losing all her dough in Monte Carlo) who allows a sympathetic taxi driver (Don Ameche) to drive her around from nightclub to nightclub looking for a job.  No luck, but there are sparks between them – nevertheless she flees, winding up in a posh society piano recital (hosted by Hedda Hopper!) where she catches the eye of John Barrymore and ends up playing bridge with his wife (Mary Astor), the man trying to seduce her (Francis Lederer), and another friend.  To avoid being thrown out of the event, she claims to be the Baroness Czerny (taking the taxi driver’s surname off the top of her head).  Soon, she finds herself employed by Barrymore to continue playing the Baroness in order to divert Lederer’s attention away from Astor – but when Ameche (the real Czerny) shows up, chaos ensues.  As it always does in screwball comedy.  Somehow too each film in this genre challenges us to guess who ends up married/not married or divorced/not divorced – and Midnight offers as complex a conclusion as any.  

  

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) – W. Dieterle

I approached this as a horror movie and, apart from Charles Laughton’s terrifying make-up as Quasimodo (the hunchback of the title), it is clearly not.  Instead, it is an historical drama (one hesitates to say romance) drawn from Victor Hugo’s novel, detailing events at the dawn of the 16^th century in France.  Louis XI is king (Harry Davenport) and he seems open to the new era, including the printing press (and the ideas it spreads) and immigration (by gypsies and others). However, his cruel chief justice Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke) is not.  This causes problems for gypsy Esmerelda (Maureen O’Hara) who entrances everyone with her dancing but who is nearly hung on the orders of Frollo (who has killed her love interest and pinned the crime on her, to suppress and reject his desire for her).  She only escapes because of a last minute rescue by Quasimodo who she had earlier pitied and soothed when he was punished and pilloried (for attempting to capture her on Frollo’s command). That’s the main story but a significant subplot tells of a secret beggar’s kingdom, led by Clopin (Thomas Mitchell) who captures the poet Gringoire (Edmond O’Brien in his film debut) and nearly hangs him except he is also pitied and then “married” ‘in a beggars’ wedding to Esmerelda.  I wish there was more of this hidden world in the film with its claustrophobic detail and crafty denizens. Indeed, the money spent on sets and costumes here must have been extravagant; apparently the Notre Dame cathedral alone cost $250K, with its belltower a significant element of the story (Quasimodo is, of course, the bellringer).  Laughton, known for his sneering eloquence, is surprisingly mute for most of the film, instead expressing himself non-verbally, impressively under all that makeup.  Apparently this made quite an impression on those who saw it in childhood and it still has the power to bewitch today.

  

The Spy in Black (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Spy in Black (1939) – M. Powell

This first collaboration between Powell and Pressburger already contains some of the lyricism that would feature so prominently in their later great films (I Know Where I’m Going!, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, etc.).  Surprisingly, the film follows Conrad Veidt, a German U-Boat commander in WWI, when he is assigned to the small Scottish Orkney Islands as a spy.  His mission is to receive secret plans from a British traitor that would allow him to destroy the warships stationed here.  His control turns out to be Valerie Hobson, undercover as a schoolteacher in the small village (after the real incoming schoolteacher is disposed of in an unfortunate way).  But things are not always how they seem to be!  Powell moves smoothly and easily between the wartime U-Boat scenes and the close up personal drama in the village (where Veidt and Hobson may be falling in love!).  A memorable portent of things to come and a solid and engaging spy story on its own.

  

Le Jour Se Leve (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Le Jour Se Leve (1939) – M. Carne

One of the touchstones for Jean Gabin’s mystique – cool, yes, but also violent and doomed.  Of course, in 1939, all of France felt doomed, so this image resonated.  Director Marcel Carne (who was later maligned, possibly injustly, as a collaborator) brings poetic realist touches to an otherwise straightforward boy-meets-girl-who-is-infatuated-with-a-sleazy-older-guy narrative.  The flashback structure, wherein Gabin remembers the events that led him to murder Jules Berry (remembering while holed up in his apartment with the police at the door), is handled well, more like a dream than reality.  Arletty is excellent as Berry’s ex-lover and Gabin’s fling (but not the object of his amour):  cynical and jaded and disappointed. The ending (doom arrives) caught me by surprise somehow – this is one that I will look forward to watching again to better perceive its true arc.

  

  

Destry Rides Again (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Destry Rides Again (1939) – G. Marshall

Jimmy Stewart seems an odd match for Marlene Dietrich (although apparently they had an affair in real life); the two stars bring their well-known personas to the American West, contrasting comically with the usual genre trappings.  He’s the new deputy sheriff, full of droll winking stories about people he knows and their experiences that taught him lessons.  She’s the tough saloon singer who is also involved in a poker game swindle organized by town “boss” Brian Donlevy (who would play similar roles in the noir context later).  The film, under George Marshall’s even-handed direction, bookends the action with both prologue and coda, showing the town of Bottleneck before Stewart arrived and then after he’s cleaned it up (with his pacifist law-abiding ways).  Despite all of its eccentricities (Mischa Auer as a Russian cowboy, Charles Winninger as the bumbling banjo-playing sheriff) – or perhaps because of them –- the film works.  If you close one eye, it’s a Dietrich picture; close the other and it’s Stewart’s. 

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Zangiku Monogatari) (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Zangiku Monogatari) (1939) – K. Mizoguchi

Mizoguchi's Edo-era drama focuses on an actor from a family of actors who decides no longer to live off his father's name but to earn his own fame (motivated because he loves a woman below his class and must defy his haughty father). The woman then sacrifices herself for his career. Yes, this is a tear-jerker, or would be, save for some inconsistency in the characterization of the main actor -- is he spoiled, too passive, selfish, a real jerk, or someone who lives for love? Perhaps we are meant to see that he comes too late to realize the true love he had, but this doesn't really come through. Beautiful settings and sounds of old Japan! 

Ninotchka (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Ninotchka (1939) – E. Lubitsch

Witty script and a finely tuned comic performance from Garbo, who comes off sweet (not sophisticated) as the dour Soviet envoy who falls for Melvyn Douglas in Paris. Although it sags a bit in the middle, the Lubitsch touch generates enough warm feelings to carry the day. No wonder this was banned in the USSR.

The Rules of the Game (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Rules of the Game (1939) – J. Renoir

Often cited as the best movie of all time, Renoir’s 1939 masterpiece manages to operate on multiple levels simultaneously, thereby increasing its pleasures.  On the simplest, most straightforward level, it is a tale of love and the game-playing that lovers may do (when they don’t know their own hearts or those of their lovers), to keep up appearances and to tease and confound their pursuers and the pursued – although the frankest, most sincere lovers may come up short in such spirited affairs. On the next deepest level, the film pokes at class differences, suggesting that any upstairs-downstairs distinctions (the film is set mainly at a country estate on the weekend of a grand fete) are merely an illusion, with both classes following the same rules (la regle du jeu, of course). The masters and the servants are essentially doubled, with two trios each featuring a married couple and an interloper, playing themes and variations on the plot’s strings.  Finally, at the deepest level, the film reveals Renoir’s angst at Europe’s failure to contend with Hitler’s rise, choosing to ignore or to placate him, keeping up appearances, just as the bourgeois guests at the estate prefer to ignore or overlook the harsh realities before them, not only of the hunt (a truly graphic interlude) but of the shocking behavior, including murder, that goes on but is explained away, following the rules of decorum, by the protagonists.  Truly, everyone may have their reasons – but this may only help to understand not to excuse actions. Evoking a mood of anxiety, uncertainty, and foreboding, and blending it with his interest in theatricality, Renoir has captured lightning in a bottle. This is a film of such rich carefully planned complexity, wedded somehow to seemingly spontaneous chaos, that it bears repeated viewings (this is my umpteenth time) and indeed close scrutiny and undoubtedly contains lessons for our time.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) – H. Hawks

Cary Grant is tough as nails (but not really heartless) as a guy who has to get the mail in and out of a badly located South American town, relying on a bunch of adrenalin junkie aviators. Thomas Mitchell plays his love interest (a common theme for Hawks). Superbly put together, with never a dull moment.