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Cocoanuts, The (1929)

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The Cocoanuts (1929)

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Director: Robert Florey, Joseph Santley

Cast: Zeppo Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Mary Eaton, Kay Francis, Oscar Shaw, Margaret Dumont, Cyril Ring, Barton MacLane

96 min

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The Cocoanuts (1929) is the Marx Brothers‘ first feature-length film. Produced for Paramount Pictures by Walter Wanger, who is not credited, the musical comedy stars the four Marx Brothers, Oscar Shaw, Mary Eaton, and Margaret Dumont.

It was the first sound film to credit more than one director (Robert Florey and Joseph Santley), and was adapted to the screen by Morrie Ryskind from the George S. Kaufman Broadway musical play. Five of the film’s tunes were composed by Irving Berlin, including “When My Dreams Come True”, sung by Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton.

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Plot

The Cocoanuts is set in the Hotel de Cocoanut, a resort hotel, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. Mr. Hammer (Groucho Marx) runs the place, assisted by Jamison (Zeppo Marx), who would rather sleep at the front desk than actually help him run it. Chico and Harpo arrive with empty luggage, which they apparently plan to fill by robbing and conning the guests.

Mrs. Potter (Margaret Dumont, in the first of seven film appearances with the Marxes) is one of the few paying customers. Her daughter Polly (Mary Eaton) is in love with struggling young architect Bob Adams (Oscar Shaw).

He works to support himself as a clerk at the hotel, but has plans for the development of the entire area as Cocoanut Manor. Mrs. Potter wants her daughter to marry Harvey Yates (Cyril Ring), whom she believes to be of higher social standing than the clerk. This suitor is actually a con man out to steal the dowager’s diamond necklace with the help of his conniving partner Penelope (Kay Francis).

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The plot is almost beside the point, and the story and setting are little more than an excuse for the brothers to run amok. The film is notable for its musical “production numbers”, including techniques which were soon to become standard, such as overhead shots of dancing girls imitating the patterns of a kaleidoscope.

The musical numbers were recorded live on the soundstage as they were shot, rather than pre-recorded, using an off-camera orchestra. The main titles are superimposed over a negative image of the “Monkey-Doodle-Do” number photographed from an angle that does not appear in the body of the film.

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One of the more famous gags in the film has Groucho giving directions to Chico, who keeps misunderstanding “viaduct” as “why-a-duck“. In another sequence Groucho is the auctioneer for some land of possibly questionable value (“You can have any kind of a home you want to; you can even get stucco!

Oh, how you can get stuck-oh!”) He has hired Chico to inflate the sale prices by making phony bids. To Groucho’s frustration, Chico keeps outbidding everyone, even himself. During the auction, Mrs. Potter announces that her necklace has been stolen and offers a thousand dollar reward, whereupon Chico offers two thousand. Still another sequence has Groucho, Mrs. Potter and Harvey Yates (the necklace thief) make formal speeches. Harpo repeatedly walks off, with a grimace on his face, to the punch bowl. (His staggering implies that the fruit punch has been spiked with alcohol.) Another highlight is when the cast, already dressed in traditional Spanish garb for a theme party, erupts into an operatic treatment about a lost shirt to music from Carmen (specifically, Habanera and the song of the Toreador). An earlier scene shows Harpo and Chico abusing a cash register while whistling the Anvil Chorus from Il trovatore, a piece also referenced in several other Marx Brothers films.

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Cast

The Cocoanuts (1929)
Zeppo Marx, Groucho Marx, Chico Marx & Harpo Marx Film: The Cocoanuts (USA 1929) Character(s): Jamison, Hammer, Chico, Harpo Director: Robert Florey & Joseph Santley 03 May 1929 AFF20867 AF Archive Picture Library/PARAMOUNT PICTURES **Warning** This Photograph is for editorial use only and is the copyright of PARAMOUNT PICTURES and/or the Photographer assigned by the Film or Production Company & can only be reproduced by publications in conjunction with the promotion of the above Film. A Mandatory Credit To PARAMOUNT PICTURES is required. The Photographer should also be credited when known. No commercial use can be granted without written authority from the Film Company.

Production

Referring to directors Robert Florey and Joseph Santley, Groucho Marx remarked, “One of them didn’t understand English and the other didn’t understand comedy.”[2]

As was common in the early days of sound film, to eliminate the sound of the camera motors the cameras and the cameramen were enclosed in large soundproof booths with glass fronts to allow filming, hence the largely static camera work. For many years, Marxian legend had it that Florey, who had never seen the Marxes’ work before, was put in the soundproof booth because he could not contain his laughter at the brothers’ spontaneous antics.[3]

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Every piece of paper in the movie is soaking wet, to keep crackling paper sounds from overloading the primitive recording equipment of the time. In fact, this did not occur to director Florey until 27 takes had been made (of the “Viaduct” scene) and disposed of because of the noise made by the paper. Florey finally got the idea to soak the paper in water; the 28th take of the “Viaduct” scene used soaked paper, and this take was quiet and used in the film.[4]

The “ink” that Harpo drank from the hotel lobby inkwell was actually Coca-Cola, and the “telephone mouthpiece” that he nibbled was made of chocolate, both inventions of Robert Florey.

Filming took place at Paramount’s Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens. Their second film, Animal Crackers, was also shot there. After that, production of all Marx films moved to Hollywood.

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Songs

  • “Florida by the Sea” (instrumental with brief vocal by chorus during opening montage)
  • “When My Dreams Come True” (theme song, Mary Eaton and Oscar Shaw variously, several reprises)
  • “The Bell-Hops” (instrumental, dance number)
  • “Monkey Doodle Doo” (vocal by Mary Eaton and dance number)
  • “Ballet Music” (instrumental, dance number)
  • “Tale of the Shirt” (vocal by Basil Ruysdael, words set to music from Carmen by Georges Bizet)
  • “Tango Melody” (vocal included in the stage production, used in the film as background music only)
  • “Gypsy Love Song” (by Victor Herbert, piano solo by Chico Marx)

The Cocoanuts is one of the few Irving Berlin vehicles that did not yield any particularly memorable songs. Several songs from the stage play were omitted from the film: “Lucky Boy”, sung by the chorus to congratulate Bob on his engagement to Polly and “A Little Bungalow”, a love duet sung by Bob and Polly that was replaced with “When My Dreams Come True” in the film.

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Irving Berlin wrote two songs entitled “Monkey Doodle Doo”. The first was published in 1913, the second introduced in the 1925 stage production and featured in the film. They are very different songs.

Although legend claims Berlin wrote the song “Always” for The Cocoanuts, he never meant for the song to be included, writing it, instead, as a gift for his fiancee.[5]

Reception

When the Marx Brothers were shown the final cut of the film, they were so horrified they tried to buy the negative back and prevent its release.[6] Paramount wisely resisted — the movie turned out to be a big box office hit, with a $1,800,000 gross making it one of the most successful early talking films.[1]

It received mostly positive reviews from critics, with the Marx Brothers themselves earning most of the praise while other aspects of the film drew a more mixed reaction. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times reported that the film “aroused considerable merriment” among the viewing audience, and that a sequence using an overhead shot was “so engaging that it elicited plaudits from many in the jammed theatre.”

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However, he found the audio quality during some of the singing to be “none too good”, adding, “a deep-voiced bass’s tones almost fade into a whisper in a close-up. Mary Eaton is charming, but one obtains little impression of her real ability as a singer.”[7]

Variety called it “a comedy hit for the regular picture houses. That’s all it has – comedy – but that’s enough.” It reported the sound had “a bit of muffling now and then” and that the dancers weren’t always filmed well: “When the full 48 were at work only 40 could be seen and those behind the first line could be seen but dimly.”[8]

“It is as a funny picture and not as a musical comedy, not for its songs, pretty girls, or spectacular scenes, that The Cocoanuts succeeds”, wrote John Mosher in The New Yorker. “Neither Mary Eaton, nor Oscar Shaw, who contribute the “love interest”, is effective, nor are the chorus scenes in the least superior to others of the same sort in various musical-comedy-movies now running in town. To the Marxes belongs the success of the show, and their peculiar talents seem, surprisingly enough, even more manifest on the screen than on the stage.”[9]

Film Daily called it “a good amount of fun, although some of it proves tiresome. This is another case of a musical comedy transferred almost bodily to the screen and motion picture treatment forgotten. The result is a good many inconsistencies which perhaps may be overlooked provided the audience accepts the offering for what it is.”[10]

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Awards and honors

American Film Institute recognition

• AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Laughs – Nominated

See also

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References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b “Big Sound Grosses”. Variety. New York. June 21, 1932. p. 62.
  2. Jump up^ Bowen, Peter (August 3, 2010). “The Cocoanuts Released”. Focus Features. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  3. Jump up^ Paul Zimmerman, The Marx Brothers At The Movies. Putnam, 1968.
  4. Jump up^ Paul D. Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt The Marx Brothers at the Movies,[page needed]
  5. Jump up^ Bader, Robert S. (2016). Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 309. ISBN 9780810134164.
  6. Jump up^ Nixon, Rob. “The Cocoanuts”. TCM.com. Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  7. Jump up^ Hall, Mordaunt (May 25, 1929). “Movie Review – The Cocoanuts”. The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  8. Jump up^ “The Cocoanuts”. Variety. New York: 14. May 29, 1929.
  9. Jump up^ Mosher, John (June 1, 1929). “The Current Cinema”. The New Yorker. p. 74.
  10. Jump up^ “The Cocoanuts”. Film Daily. New York: Wid’s Films and Film Folk, Inc. June 2, 1929. p. 9.

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Gentlemen of the Press (1929)

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Gentlemen of the Press (1929)

 

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Director: Millard Webb

Cast: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Charles Ruggles, Betty Lawford, Norman Foster, Duncan Penwarden, Lawrence Leslie, Harry Lee, Brian Donlevy, Victor Killian

80 min

Gentlemen of the Press is a 1929 all-talking film starring Walter Huston in his first feature film role and Kay Francis in her first film role. The film still survives. This film’s copyright has expired and it is now in the public domain. It survives in a copy sold to MCA for television distribution.[1]

The film is based on Ward Morehouse’s 1928 Broadway play Gentlemen of the Press.[2]

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Cast

uncredited

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References

  1. Jump up^ AFI Catalog of Feature Films , Gentlemen of the Press
  2. Jump up^ Gentlemen of the Press as produced on Broadway at Henry Miller’s Theatre, Aug. 27, 1928 – Dec. 1928; for 128 performances; IBDb.com

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Virtuous Sin, The (1930)

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The Virtuous Sin (1930)

 

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Director: George Cukor, Louis J Gasnier

Cast: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Kenneth MacKenna, Jobyna Howland, Paul Cavanagh, Eric Kalkhurst, Oscar Apfel, Gordon McLeod, Victor Potel

80 min

The Virtuous Sin is a 1930 American Pre-Code comedy-drama film directed by George Cukor and Louis J. Gasnier. The screenplay by Martin Brown and Louise Long is based on the play The General by Lajos Zilahy.

Plot

Marya is the wife of medical student Victor Sablin, who finds it impossible to deal with military life when he is inducted into the Russian army during World War I. With her husband is sentenced to death by firing squad due to his insubordination, Marya offers herself to General Gregori Platoff in order to save him. When the two unexpectedly fall in love, Victor — not caring that his life has been spared — threatens to kill his rival. His determination to eliminate the general falters when Marya confesses she is not in love with her husband — and never was.

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Cast

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Critical reception

Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times called the film “a clever comedy with a splendid performance by Walter Huston” and added, “There is a constant fund of interest in this picture’s action. It is one of those rare offerings in which youth takes a back seat.[1]

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George Cukor’s reflection in 1972

In the book On Cukor, director George Cukor confided to biographer Gavin Lambert: “It wasn’t much good. I’d be in great shock if they [film restorationists & historians] rescued this one. I remember that I enjoyed working with Kay Francis and Walter Huston, though.”[2]

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Preservation status

A complete print of this film is held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. However, the UCLA archive’s website says the print is too shrunken for projection.[3]

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See also

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References

  1. Jump up^ “Review”, The New York Times.
  2. Jump up^ Parish, James Robert; Mank, Gregory W.; Stanke, Don E. (1978), The Hollywood Beauties, New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House Publishers, p. 73, ISBN 0-87000-412-3
  3. Jump up^ UCLA Film and Television Archive website

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Let’s Go Native (1930)

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Let’s Go Native (1930)

LET'S GO NATIVE, Jeanette MacDonald, 1930

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Director: Leo McCarey

Cast: Jack Oakie, Jeanette MacDonald, Kay Francis, Richard Skeets Gallagher, James Hall, William Austin, David Newell, Charles Sellon, Eugene Pallette, Virginia Bruce, John Elliott, Douglas Haig

77 min

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Let’s Go Native is a 1930 American Pre-Code black-and-white musical comedy film, directed by Leo McCarey and released by Paramount Pictures.

Jerry comments on being the only man on an island populated by women, “It was one of the Virgin Islands, but it drifted.” The tagline was: “Paramount’s wild, merry, mad hilarious farce!”

Cast

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Soundtrack

  • “It Seems To Be Spring”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
  • “Let’s Go Native”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
  • “My Mad Moment”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
  • “I’ve Gotta Yen For You”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
Sung by Jack Oakie
  • “Joe Jazz”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
Sung by Jack Oakie
  • “Pampa Rose”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.
  • “Don’t I Do?”
Lyrics by George Marion Jr.
Music by Richard A. Whiting
Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corp.

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Street Of Chance (1930)

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Street Of Chance (1930)

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Director: John Cromwell

Cast: Kay Francis, William Powell, Jean Arthur, Regis Toomey, Stanley Fields, Brooks Benedict, Maurice Black, Irving Bacon, John Risso, Joan Standing

75 min

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Street of Chance is a 1930 American pre-Code film directed by John Cromwell and starring William Powell, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis and Regis Toomey. Howard Estabrook was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Achievement.

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Plot

John Marsden, a famed and powerful New York gambler who refuses to throw a game, is devoted to his wife, Alma, and his impressionistic younger brother, “Babe,” to whom he sends a wedding gift of $10,000, which Babe may keep on the condition that he does not indulge in gambling. Alma, dismayed by John’s ruthless tactics and his obsession with gambling, threatens to leave him unless he takes his winnings and leaves the city with her. He agrees.

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However, that evening Babe, who has become a cardsharp, comes to town with his new wife, Judith. He goes to see his brother, whom he believes is a stockbroker, unaware of John’s true profession and the reality that he is trying to quit and rebuild his marriage. Babe insists on playing and tries to win a fortune with his savings in an organized gambling session. He wins remarkably. The professional gambler sees that his card-playing sibling is preparing to make the same mistakes he did.

John therefore decides to risk his life and gamble one more time, and to break the gambler’s code and cheat by throwing the game, in order to disillusion Babe, thereby teaching him an unforgettable lesson. However, John is caught cheating by Dorgan and becomes a marked man. John is later mortally wounded, in spite of his wife’s attempts to save him.

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Cast

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See also

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For The Defense (1930)

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For The Defense (1930)

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Director: John Cromwell

Cast: Kay Francis, William Powell, Scott Kolk, William B Davidson, Thomas E Jackson, Harry Walker, James Finlayson, Charles West, Bertram Marburgh, Billy Bevan, John Cromwell, Sidney D’Albrook

65 min

TCM ARCHIVE

For the Defense is a 1930 Pre-Code crime drama film starring William Powell as a lawyer whose ethics are challenged when the woman he loves hits and kills a pedestrian while out driving with another suitor.

Plot

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In New York City, William Foster (William Powell) is a criminal defense attorney so successful that prosecutors regard him as a menace. He holds himself to high ethical standards but is willing to mislead without actually lying.

Foster defends a man who planned a murder using explosives. District Attorney Stone (William B. Davidson) displays a vial and says chemical tests have shown that the liquid in it is sensitive nitroglycerin. Foster sniffs the liquid, questions him to verify the chain of custody, and then smashes the vial dramatically on the floor. When order is restored, he explains to the judge that he knew it was safe because nitro has a distinctive smell, and Stone says he had removed the actual nitro for safety after the chemical test. But Foster points out that only the liquid now in the bottle was entered into evidence, and wins his case.

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Foster is in love with actress Irene Manners (Kay Francis), and she loves him, but she wants to be married and he does not. When another suitor, Jack Defoe (Scott Kolk), proposes to her, she says she needs to tell Foster about him before she can accept; but she finds she cannot do so. She stays out late enough at night with Defoe to leave only one implication of what they were doing, and while driving him home, she does agree to marry him. He suddenly hugs her and she loses control of the car, killing a bystander.

To protect Irene’s reputation, Defoe urges her to leave the scene, lying that the victim is not badly hurt. Presumed to have been driving while drunk, he is charged with manslaughter. They both still conceal her involvement, but she begs Foster to defend him. He asks why she cares enough about Defoe to insist; she says she and Defoe are just friends, but she had already promised him on Foster’s behalf, assuming Foster would be willing. Foster agrees, but finds that Defoe cannot tell a credible story at trial.

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Then Foster finds out that Irene was at the accident scene and therefore must be much more than “just friends” with Defoe. Foster is crushed, but she still begs him to get Defoe acquitted, while Defoe fears Foster will throw the case and Irene will be charged and convicted as well. Foster eventually puts his love for Irene first and, for the first time in his life, bribes a juror to vote not guilty, hanging the jury.

Foster is quickly found out and arrested, and defends himself at trial. As he will not see Irene, she goes to Stone, admits what really happened at the accident, and says Foster was only trying to protect her. If Stone does not agree to recommend mercy, Irene says, she will tell her story in court. Stone says he will think about it.

Although his defense is going well, Foster then offers to plead guilty (and thus be disbarred, no doubt making life easier for prosecutors in future) if only Stone will agree not to retry Defoe; but Stone says he does not make deals. Back in court, Irene sends Foster a note pleading to let her testify and tell the truth. To protect her, Foster immediately changes his plea to guilty. Stone then tells Foster that neither Defoe nor Irene will be prosecuted.

As Foster arrives at Sing Sing to serve his sentence, Irene is there and says she will be waiting for him when he comes out. He says that if she does, then he will marry her.

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Cast

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Night World (1932)

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Night World (1932)

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Director: Hobart Henley

Cast: Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, Dorothy Revier, Russell Hopton, Hedda Hopper, Clarence Ruse, Bert Roach, George Raft, Arleta Duncan, Jack La Rue

58 min 

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Night World is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film featuring Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, and Boris Karloff.[1] The supporting cast includes George Raft and Hedda Hopper (before she became a noted gossip columnist).

The movie was directed by Hobart Henley and features an early Busby Berkeley music number, “Who’s Your Little Who-Zis”.[2] Although Karloff is a villain, he plays a charming man, quite unlike most of the parts he was allowed to play at the time.

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Contents

1 – Plot

2 – Cast

3 – See also

4 – References

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Plot

On a cold winter’s night outside Happy’s Nightclub, Irish-American police officer Ryan (Robert Emmett O’Connor) chats with African-American doorman Tim Washington (Clarence Muse), who is worried about his critically ill wife.

Inside, club owner Happy (Boris Karloff) is arguing with his shrewish but glamorous wife Jill (Dorothy Revier) and welcoming frequent customers Ed Powell (George Raft), a crooked gambler, and Michael Rand (Lew Ayres). Rand is a wealthy college boy who watched his mother kill his father after catching him with another woman, a case widely covered by the tabloids. Rand is now drinking heavily to deaden his pain.

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Backstage, gambler Powell asks chorus girl Ruth Taylor (Mae Clarke) for a date and, after losing an impromptu bet, she agrees to go out with him. After the floor show, all the chorus girls are asked to stay late by their cruel dance master, Klauss (Russell Hopton), who is secretly having an affair with Happy’s wife Jill.

Edith Blair (Dorothy Petersen) spots a drunken Michael sitting alone at a table. Edith was the ‘other woman’ in the murder of Michael’s father. She tell Michael that she and his father were only good friends, and that his father loved him deeply.

She also tells Michael that his killer mother never loved his father, and cursed him as he was dying. An upset Michael creates an outburst and overturns a table at the nightclub. He passes out after being punched, and is taken to the back room of the club where Ruth cares for him.

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Happy leaves to discuss bootleg liquor purchases with another gangster, Jim. (Huntley Gordon.) As he exits, doorman Tim asks if he can leave early to visit is ailing wife, but Happy refuses.

When Michael wakes up from his liquor-related nap, he and Ruth have a warm chat. Gambler Powell interrupts them and insists Ruth to come to his apartment immediately. Michael punches Powell and Tim takes the fallen gambler out to a taxi. Suddenly, Michael’s mother (Hedda Hopper) arrives at the nightclub. Michael confronts her about the way she treated his father.

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The late-night dance rehearsal continues, but Klauss calls a break so he can spend more time with Jill. Happy returns, and Tim asks again if he can go see his wife in the hospital. Happy refuses. Happy catches Jill and Klauss together, and Klauss leaves in disgrace. Happy tells Jill that he will not divorce her, but remain married to her and do his best to make her miserable.

Michael and Ruth sit down for a meal together. Michael asks Ruth if she would be interested in running away to Bali with him, as his wife, even though they have only known each other for a few hours.

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Their happy moment is interrupted by Tim, who has just learned that his wife is dead. As he leaves the club to finally go to her bedside, he is fatally shot by gangster Jim and a comrade, who have come for Happy. They shoot Happy and then his wife Jill. When they turn their guns towards Michael and Ruth, they are suddenly shot dead by the returning police officer Ryan. Michael and Ruth get into the police wagon together, and Ruth agrees to go Bali with Michael.

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Cast

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See also

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References

  1. Jump up^ Night World, imdb.com; accessed August 9, 2015.
  2. Jump up^ Everett Aaker, The Films of George Raft, McFarland & Company, 2013 p 26

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Parole Girl (1933)

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Parole Girl (1933)

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Director: Edward F Cline

Cast: Mae Clarke, Ralph Bellamy, Marie Prevost, Hale Hamilton, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Ernest Wood, Sam Godfrey, Lucille Browne, Frank Fanning, Raul Freeman

67 min

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Parole Girl is a 1933 American Pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Edward Cline. The film stars Mae Clarke and Ralph Bellamy.

Plot

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When Sylvia Day (Mae Clarke) is caught trying to pull a scam on the Taylor Department Store in New York City, she pleads with the store manager to let her go, but his boss, Joe Smith (Ralph Bellamy), insists on following store policy, and she is handed over to the police, convicted and sentenced to a year in prison. Sylvia is consumed with the idea of getting revenge on Joe.

She becomes friends with chatty fellow inmate Jeanie Vance (Marie Prevost), who offers to team up with her (and commit more crimes) once they have served their time. When Sylvia learns that Jeanie has a surprising connection to Joe, she decides to get out early. She sets a fire, then passes out from the smoke while trying to put it out. For her “heroism”, she is granted parole.

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Tony Gratton (Hale Hamilton), her partner in the failed con, tries to talk her into marrying him and going to Chicago to continue their life of crime, but she is determined to avenge herself. Besides, she knows that Tony is already married.

Sylvia stalks Joe, learning all she can about him. Then, she pretends to be an old acquaintance at a nightclub where Joe is celebrating his promotion to general manager by getting drunk. The next morning, Joe discovers her in his apartment. She informs him that they have gotten married. Joe laughs, then tells her that he already has a wife. She tells him she knows (it is Jeanie), then reveals her motives. Tony shows up, masquerading as the person who married them; he gives Joe the marriage license the couple supposedly left behind. Threatened with a charge of bigamy, Joe reluctantly agrees to support Sylvia for a year, the length of her parole.

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Tony tries again to get Sylvia to be his partner in crime. When she refuses, he slips a counterfeit $20 bill in her purse. Sylvia goes on a shopping spree and pays for some of her purchases with the bill. It is traced back to her, but when a policeman shows up to take her back to jail, Joe pretends that she took the money out of his pants pocket. As a store manager, he deals with counterfeit money all the time. The ploy works, and Jeanie sends back her extravagant purchases.

Later, Joe calls her from the office and asks her for a favor. Mr. Taylor (Ferdinand Gottschalk), the store’s somewhat eccentric owner, has found out that Joe is married, so he is coming to dinner at their apartment. While Sylvia is cooking, Jeanie shows up. Her friend has been released early and intends to blackmail her husband (whom she married long ago while he was in college and then lost track of), once she can locate him, before heading to Florida with Sylvia. Sylvia gets her to leave before Joe and Mr. Taylor show up (early) by promising to give her a decision the next day. Taylor insists on doing the cooking; he is fed up with being waited on by servants. He becomes very fond of the couple and hints at a promotion to vice president if they were to have a baby.

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The next day, Sylvia persuades Jeanie that it is too dangerous to try blackmail in New York because of her record and agrees to go with her to Florida. Sylvia leaves a letter for Joe explaining everything, ending with the admission “I love you”. On the train, however, Jeanie reveals that she divorced Joe without his knowledge. Sylvia gets off and rushes back to the apartment; Joe has already read the letter and takes her in his arms.

Cast

“The Players” as listed in the opening credits of Parole Girl:[1]

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Cast notes

  • Mae Clarke is the same actress who two years before the release of Parole Girl had a grapefruit shoved into her face by James Cagney in the film The Public Enemy. That same year, in 1931, she also appeared in Universal Studios‘ horror classic Frankenstein, portraying the fiancee of the monster’s creator.

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  • By the time of Parole Girl’s release in 1933, Ralph Bellamy had become a busy actor and a very popular one among American movie audiences. Bellamy appeared in eleven other films released that same year, including the Picture Snatcher, an action film in which he plays second-lead to James Cagney.[2]

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  • Sam Godfrey, who plays “Walsh” in Parole Girl, rarely received an on-screen credit like the one he has in this film. Godfrey’s career as a peripheral or supporting character lasted only a few years, from 1932 until his death at the age of forty-three in 1935. He managed, however, during that brief period to appear in forty-one films. Of that total he received a screen credit in only seven of those productions.[3]

References

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  1. Jump up^ A full copy (1:51) of Parole Girl is available for viewing on YouTube. Search by film title on YouTube’s homepage. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  2. Jump up^ “Ralph Bellamy,” Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  3. Jump up^ “Sam Godfrey,” IMDb. Retrieved March 14, 2017.

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Dillinger Is Dead Trailer (1969) – The Criterion Collection

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Dillinger Is Dead (Italian: Dillinger è morto) is a 1969 Italian drama directed by Marco Ferreri. It stars Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg and Annie Girardot. The story is a darkly satiric blend of fantasy and reality. It follows a bored, alienated man over the course of one night in his home. The title comes from a newspaper headline featured in the film which proclaims the death of the real life American gangster John Dillinger.

The film proved controversial on its initial release for its subject matter and violence but is now generally regarded as Ferreri’s masterpiece. It was acclaimed by the influential French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma and afterwards Ferreri worked and lived in Paris for many years. Since the mid-1980s the film has been screened only very rarely.

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Plot

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Glauco, a middle-aged industrial designer of gas masks, is growing tired of his occupation. Having discussed alienation with a colleague at the factory, he returns home. His wife is in bed with a headache but has left him dinner, which has become cold. He is dissatisfied with the food and begins preparing himself a gourmet meal.

While collecting ingredients he discovers an old revolver wrapped in a 1934 newspaper with the headline “Dillinger is dead” and an account of the famous American gangster’s death. Glauco cleans and restores the gun while continuing to cook his dinner, then paints it red with white polka dots.

He also eats his meal, watches some television and projected home movies, listens to music and seduces their maid. With the gun he enacts suicide a number of times. At dawn he shoots his wife thrice in the head as she sleeps. Then he drives to the seaside where he gets a job as a chef on a yacht bound for Tahiti.

Themes

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The film, and especially its surreal finale in which the character Glauco leaves home and finds a job on a yacht, has been interpreted variously. Author Fabio Vighi approached it from a psychoanalytical standpoint, suggesting the uxoricide is an attempt to “kill” something inside himself. Glauco repeatedly stages his own suicide throughout the film. The final murder, then, is a means to escape his life by eliminating the primary link to his bourgeois lifestyle, which he would otherwise be unable to leave.[1]

Writer Mira Liehm posits director Marco Ferreri followed in the style of the Theatre of the Absurd and did not apply psychology or logic to his characters but then placed his absurdist creations in a real world context. The home with its many luxuries, such as the gourmet dining and film projector, as well as the cleaning and decoration of the gun, are meaningless diversions which trap Glauco in a metaphorical prison and suffocate him. His isolation leads to death or an “illusionary escape.”[2] As Italian film historian Paolo Bertetto explained, “The escape to Tahiti means a total closure of all horizons, the paralysis of all possibilities; we are brought down to zero, stripped of all perspectives, and restored to the original nothingness.”[2]

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Cast

  • Michel Piccoli as Glauco: a middle-age designer of protective masks which allow people to breathe under inhospitable conditions. Isolated, ennuyed and insomniac, he searches his house for diversion. Piccoli viewed the role as that of an “eternal child or this childlike rebirth of ‘mature’ man, between despair, suicide, simple insomnia, dream.”[3]
  • Anita Pallenberg as the wife
  • Annie Girardot as the maid

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Production

Director Marco Ferreri first met leading man Michel Piccoli when he visited the actor on the set of Alain Cavalier‘s La Chamade (1968).

Ferreri had Piccoli read a few pages from Dillinger Is Dead and hired him immediately. Piccoli has said Ferreri did not direct his performance and only gave simple blocking instructions. He played the character as solitary and volatile, comparing it to his role in Agnès Varda‘s The Creatures (1966).

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Release and reception

The film was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.[4] Dillinger Is Dead was the subject of controversy on its release for its violence and depiction of the parvenu set.[3] Critics have also called it director Marco Ferreri’s masterpiece.[2]

The influential French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma praised the film, interviewed the director and translated two of his previous interviews from the Italian magazine Cinema & Film. The acclaim opened the resources of Paris to Ferreri and he spent much of the next 15 years living there.

During that time he made his internationally best known films, including The Last Woman (1976) and Bye Bye Monkey (1978). Ferreri and Michel Piccoli became fast friends and worked together subsequently on films such as The Last Woman and La Grande Bouffe (1973).[5]

According to critic Viano Maurizio, by the mid-1980s Reaganomics‘ effect on the film market resulted in Dillinger’s near disappearance and it has been rarely seen since.[5] It appeared in the 2006 Marco Ferreri Retrospective in London.[6][7] A new print was provided by The Criterion Collection for the 2007 Telluride Film Festival.[8] It premiered on Turner Classic Movies in America on June 26, 2016.[9]

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References

  1. Jump up^ Vighi, Fabio (2006). “Enjoying the Real: unconscious strategies of subversion”. Traumatic Encounters in Italian Film: Locating the Cinematic Unconscious. Intellect Books. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-84150-140-6.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c Liehm, Mira (March 1986). “The Glorious Sixties (1961 – 1969)”. Passion and Defiance: Italian Film from 1942 to the Present. University of California Press. pp. 206–207. ISBN 0-520-05744-9.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b Béghin, Cyril (November 2005). “The Actor and the Secret: Interview with Michel Piccoli”. Sally Shafto (trans). Cahiers du cinéma. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  4. Jump up^ “Festival de Cannes: Dillinger Is Dead”. festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-08. Retrieved 2009-04-05.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b Viano, Maurizio (2004). “La Grande Abbuffata / La Grande Bouffe”. In Giorgio Bertellini. The Cinema of Italy. Wallflower Press. p. 195. ISBN 1-903364-98-1.
  6. Jump up^ “Marco Ferreri Retrospective” (PDF). Ciné Lumière. November 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-08.[permanent dead link]
  7. Jump up^ “Marco Ferreri”. Vertigo Magazine. 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
  8. Jump up^ Kramer, Edith (2007). “32: Dillinger Is Dead” (PDF). 34th Telluride Film Festival. Telluride Film Festival. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2007-09-08.
  9. Jump up^ TCM Forum, Accessed July 6, 2016

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Cinematheque Live, Home, Silent Films

Country Doctor, The (1909)

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Mary Pickford 1

Mary Pickford Season: FD Cinematheque

The Country Doctor (1909)

Director: D W Griffith

Cast: Mary Pickford, Kate Bruce, Adele DeGarde, Gladys Egan, Rose King, Florence Lawrence, Frank Powell, 

14 min

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D W Griffith

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The Country Doctor is a 1909 American short silent drama film written and directed by D. W. Griffith. Currently in the public domain, prints of The Country Doctor are preserved at the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress.[1]

Plot

A doctor (Frank Powell) leaves his sick daughter (Adele DeGarde) to assist a neighbor that is gravely ill, and ignores his wife’s requests to come home and take care of his own daughter who is getting worse.

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Cast

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See also

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References

  1. Jump up^ “Progressive Silent Film List: The Country Doctor”. Silent Era. Retrieved July 16, 2008.

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