Black & White World

You can tell by the lines I'm reciting, I've seen that movie too.

silent

Sunday, June 02, 2002

The Crowd (1928)

I didn’t like this movie as much the second time around as I did the first time I saw it, but the cinematography and direction are still stunning and decades ahead of its time.  King Vidor is certainly one of the great unsung directors of the silent era.  The acting of both the leads is quite good, but the supporting players, particularly Mary’s “silent movie villain” brothers, are largely forgettable.

The story is simple—a young man, told his whole life by his parents that he was meant to be better than the rest, moves to New York City to take on “the crowd.”  As life takes its little unexpected turns, he discovers he’s really no better than the crowd, and once he accepts that his chances for having a happy life increase exponentially.

Saturday, May 25, 2002

The Big Parade (1925)

Rich layabout Jim (Gilbert) is uncertain about his future and his career.  On the urging of his sweetheart, he joins the Army and goes proudly off to fight World War I.  While overseas, he experiences the horrors of war and finds his true love Melisande (Adoree).

I hadn’t seen this since it was first released on video, and I’d forgotten how powerful it was.  The battle scenes are just RELENTLESS.  Jim and Melisande’s farewell when he gets called up to the front is heart-wrenching, although their reunion scene is too brief—the movie took its time with so many scenes leading up to the end, I felt a little cheated that the reunion took all of thirty seconds.

Primo stuff here for lip-readers, I must have seen John Gilbert say “goddamn it,” “son of a bitch” and “bastard” four or five times.  And a bit that made me laugh—not sure whether it was intentional or not—the scene where he wakes up in a makeshift army hospital, in an obvious state of shock.  Jim half-heartedly shoos a few flies from his face, then turns to regard the fellow in the bunk next to him.  The other patient is strapped into his bed, struggling to break free and screaming with hysterics.  Cut back to Jim’s bunk, and he very clearly says to the guy, “Oh, shut up.”

There’s a very nice use of symbolism by Vidor that I just recently got:  When Jim leaves for the front, there is the intense goodbye scene.  As he leaves on the truck, he throws her his watch, to prove that he’s coming back.  Then he throws her his dog tags—ostensibly to prove that he has no intention of dying, and they won’t need them to identify him.  At a desperate loss to leave behind something else for her, he removes his boot and throws that to her as well.  It’s the boot for the leg he later loses in combat.

Overall:  a little long in spots, but the payoffs are great.  I’m glad I saw it again, I had remembered little of it and it was well worth a second viewing.

The Jazz Singer (1927)

I’ve always kind of assumed that this was a “gimmick picture,” the ‘20s equivalent of today’s blockbusters that favor flash over substance.  I assumed (erroneously) that there was nothing else to recommend the film other than its reputation of being the first talkie*.

How wrong I was!  This is a sweet and moving story about the son of an orthodox Jewish Cantor who decides to use his God-given gift (his singing voice) to become a jazz singer, rather than carry on the tradition of five generations of cantors.  His mother understands his dream, but his father condemns him and throws him out of the house.

Jolson really is charming and quite funny (especially in his improvised dialogue with his mother during “Blue Skies”), and his singing voice affected me more than I thought it would—particularly his rendition of “Kol Nidre.”  I’m a sucker for films that use music effectively, and I can’t think of a better example than this film.

The performances are mostly pretty good, although there is some excessive eye-rolling.  The supporting players are fine, but it’s Jolson’s film all the way.

Unexpected bonuses:  Myrna Loy and Roscoe Karns in small bit roles (and William Demarest according to IMDB, but I don’t remember seeing him).