Reviews

Beware spoilers!!!

Another set of variations on the favourite Hitchcock themes of women, sex, violence and repression.

Do not be fooled: fundamentally, this is not the ‘light comedy' it appears on the surface to be. (There are one or two excellent comic sequences - Robert's interview with his feeble lawyer, afraid of contradicting police evidence; and the young cousin's birthday party. )

But beneath the surface lies the potential tragedy that may result from the choices thrust by fate on the girl.

Erica, at the start of the film, is painfully alone. In particular, horribly bereft of female support. Where, to start with, is her mother? (One hopes not dead - perhaps she is abroad, chasing ‘boys' of her own.) How long has Erica managed without her (or some credible substitute)?

Neither, seemingly, has she a sister, or a best friend. We see a housekeeper serving lunch, but there is no sign of the maternal warmth of a Jean Cadell in the 1938 ‘Pygmalion', for instance. (A film where the heroine starts with no mother and ends up, in effect, with two!)

The portrait of her family, seated round the dining-table, places Erica as Matron of a third-rate boys' boarding school: her brothers are pleasant enough, and - after her capture by the police - are seen trying to offer her encouragement. But one couldn't expect them to be able to support her in her emotional travails. (In fact, she rather seems to rebuff their overtures.)

And her father is more like a grandfather in age and apparent attitude. We see evidence towards the beginning, and again at the end, of the film of their mutual affection. He is clearly far from authoritarian - he lets her drive around the countryside in an ‘old banger' that might die on her in the middle of nowhere; and he has no qualms in principle about her dating - without a chaperone, either! But one feels he would balk at providing romantic advice.

(None of her family appear to register that Erica has left the table (and the house) to take Robert some food - a rather chilling indifference.)

Not surprisingly, she seems at ease in ordinary male company (she'd have had enough practice, given her father's career to date): she gives as good as she gets in Robert's fainting scene in the police station, and again at the ‘carmen's shelter' Tom's Hat.

But romance, if that's the word, is a different matter. Hitchcock casts much doubt on Robert's ‘intentions' and suitability: the various accounts of his relationship with the victim that he gives to the police, and then to Erica, are pretty fishy. His judgement appears warped on several occasions (as when he tells the police sergeant on the beach not to be silly!). And he seems to be a washout as a provider.

Most tellingly, he is almost twice Erica's age. His youthful features and rather adolescent behaviour only serve to emphasise this difference. He is neither ‘Young' nor ‘Innocent', and there is no one around to point this out to her. (The fact he is innocent of the murder doesn't mean there aren't other things he's not so innocent of.)

And, at the end of the film, when his clear paternal duty is to put a brake (at the very least) on the Erica-Robert romance, her father seems happy to shake his hand, almost as if welcoming him into the family. (Even without the murder, the difference in ages alone would have urged great caution.)

As one murder is solved, it seems another is being set up: one story of Robert's after another fails to find a buyer, more (and cruder) pressure on Erica to press her father for money, accusations of disloyalty (‘You'd ask him if you really loved me', etc). Perhaps her sexual inexperience would lead him to seek lovers - with whom thoughts would naturally turn to collecting on Erica's life insurance!

In his English thriller ‘series', Hitchcock had already presented marriage as tragedy ending in violence (the crofter's wife in ‘39 Steps'). There, the scene of violence is shown but only up to the striking of the first blow (off-screen): in ‘Young and Innocent', he‘s more indirect, merely setting up a situation which might well lead to violence.

The unevenness of the film, and of the performances of the two leads, only make it more disturbing: the absurdly theatrical opening sequence, for instance, with the homicidal husband shouting as if to be heard at the back of the stalls (his telltale twitch is equally exaggerated); and the crassly absurd crime story (neither the police case nor Robert's hold up under two minutes' scrutiny).

Pilbeam (Hitchcock's Great White Hope at the time, but soon after unceremoniously dumped) is only fitfully sympathetic. She is passable in comic scenes, but tends to self-parody when things get emotional: her ‘terribly...terribly tired' in the car hidden behind the freight train is embarrassing. But that embarrassment only adds to the sense of the girl's ‘innocence' (or ‘unworldliness', perhaps), and thus serves the film indirectly.

Lastly, there's the Towser question. I don't think we ever see her pet actually being petted by her. Or talked to. Even before she gets involved in the manhunt. (Robert redeems himself somewhat by taking the dog on his lap in the car and stroking it from time to time.)

This despite the sterling work he does in alerting her in the old mill to the approaching police, and nosing out the raincoat several layers down on the tramp.

Though he appears to escape from the land-slip in the old mine workings, she seems to forget him thereafter.

Even more bizarrely, Towser seems equally indifferent to her. It's as if she's so emotionally frigid that she repels even the instinctive affection of a dog, poor girl!

All in all, a film well worth critical and repeated viewing.

Beware spoilers!

In intention, it was, I believe, Coward's presentation of pre-War England to a post-War generation. He'd tried something of the sort in 'This Happy Breed', with results that were far from happy - a sort of poor man's 'Cavalcade'.

In the meantime, Olivier had made his patriotic statement in 'Henry V'. Professional jealousy would be understandable.

In 'Brief Encounter', we have an altogether sparer piece, in timescale and characters. For all the impact of the music - 'Rach 2' is essentially a co-star - and rather expressionistic photography of Krasker (foreshadowing his work in 'The Third Man'), it is ostensibly a domestic tale worthy of a writer such as Kate O'Brien, whose 'latest' ('Pray for the Wanderer') Laura so coveted: a rather old-fashioned story of a woman denied the belated chance of happiness by the rigid dictates of a hypocritical society. Almost a throwback to the Victorian melodrama of the 'East Lynne' type.

But the quality of the film itself is calculated to excite curiosity about the characters and their society. A cascade of questions naturally ensues.

What exactly is Alec doing in Milford every Thursday? For a hospital consultant to let a 'humble GP' 'take over' his patients for a day seems a rather peculiar arrangement, even for those pre-litigation-mania days. Is Laura the first woman he's picked up? After all, a doctor can always make himself useful with little domestic emergencies...

How are Alec and Stephen really connected? Could it be that, in those fondly remembered days at medical school, a soigné, slightly older, student had picked up a pretty grammar school boy from the North? And been dumped in favour of a girl - Madeleine, say? (Stephen really is a thoroughly poisonous portrait of a homosexual - perhaps based on some acquaintance of Coward's?)

And what of Madeleine, the only concerned party we don't see? Laura jumps eagerly on Alec's description of her as 'delicate' to suppose her to be some sort of invalid - a wonderfully catty moment! - by implication, unable to satisfy him sexually. But isn't it likely that he has painted a self-servingly unflattering portrait? Is she quite the doormat he makes her out to be - so subservient as to jump on a liner to South Africa at the snap of his fingers?

The South African story also deserves some thought. Isn't it all too convenient - that a new hospital in Jo'burg should be starting up - AND his brother is in a position to give him a job - just at the time he needs a funk-hole into which to escape? (The sort of over-convenient coincidence of Harry Lime's 'accident' in 'The Third Man').

(Incidentally, Alec shows his true colours over the South African job - when he offers not to take it if (a thoroughly distraught) Laura says she doesn't want him to.)

More practical questions also arise - divorce and separation, the legal and social effects, especially on a doctor's career. Had Laura run away with Alec, in 1939, she would have had to count on losing her children. Deception on an industrial scale would probably have been necessary to preserve his career - not to mention the threat of needing to move every time their past caught up with them. And we see how much she hates the minor deceptions she practices on Fred.

Fred. Spouse-as-obstacle-to-love. Surely, he is the true villain of the piece, a barrier both to romance and female liberation...

Look at the two males side by side - Fred is older, first of all: at least 40. Unlike Alec, he will most likely have seen service in the First World War, probably on the Western Front.

To this may be attributed his desire for domestic tranquillity. (Not for nothing is his catchphrase 'Have it your own way'.) Alec may have seen more gore, in his professional capacity; but to pick up one's mug of tea and find floating in it the brains of someone one was just talking to - and to observe, take part in, the casual rutting in which soldier and officer alike sought, when in rest, to blot out the horrors of war - all that would have given Fred a sense of proportion about sexual passion that Alec clearly did not share.

The truth is, Fred more than likely has contemplated his wife's possible infidelity long before Alec comes on the scene. She is pretty enough, for all her dowdy clothes (and silly hats). We see her flirting very winningly in the Kardomah - Fred will have witnessed similar incidents. And he probably has long concluded that it wouldn't matter - he would be hurt, he couldn't help that - but nothing would be worth breaking up the home, certainly not something as worthless as a cuckold's pride.

At the end, whether the affair has been consummated or not is a matter of indifference to him. He clearly assumes it has. He has only waited to say something for fear of appearing to make her choose, whilst she is still under the influence of her passion. (A New Man of his time, indeed!)

And what of that passion? Some reverse discrimination here, surely? In the case of a man in Laura's situation, wouldn't we just say he was 'thinking with his unit'?

These questions are no more than examples. The railway, cinema, shops, streets are all fertile areas; comparison with 'Still Lives' is instructive; and so on.

But this is no museum piece, viewable - like so much British cinema, unfortunately - only as visual archaeology. Its triumph is essentially artistic: to integrate the social document and narrative into a seamless whole, as satisfying as entertainment as it is rich as research material.

Beware - Spoilers Ahead!

Not really the triumph it is made out to be, I regret to say.

The leads are each at least ten years too old - to make it plausible that Flavia has changed from gawky kid to beautiful woman over the three years since the King last saw her, she should be no more than 20; a non-cradle-snatching Rassendyll in his early 30s, at the most.

Flavia cries out for the vulnerable, virginal face and steely inner core of Olivia de Havilland as seen in the following year's ‘Robin Hood' of Curtiz. And as her lover, her ‘Hood' Errol Flynn would have served much better than Colman (a full 18 years his senior!). Or perhaps Olivier might have been imported for the role. (The roster of Hollywood-acceptable star English actors in the right age range capable of playing the part was pretty short!)

Age would not have mattered so much were the film not so devoid of humour (which Carroll had served up in abundance in Hitchcock's ‘39 Steps' of 1935, and which she managed again in ‘My Favorite Blonde' with Bob Hope in 1942).

In the book, as I remember it, Rassendyll is something of a playboy in London; Colman's flirting with Carroll in the carriage ‘saluting the crowd' scene is so leaden as to make it seem incredible that he is anything of a ladies' man. (This was, of course, something of a Golden Age of screen flirting, the Breen Office stymieing anything more explicit.)

The music - which I had remembered as stirring - turns out to be rather repetitive, there being just the two main themes, the ‘national anthem‘ and the lovers' theme; so that by what should be the crucial final scene between the lovers, one is heartily sick of those soupy strings and, as the price for not hearing them again, almost glad to see the lovers part!

That scene (shot by Cukor - in his capacity as ‘women's director') is problematic in other respects, as well. The ‘look' is different from the rest of the film, and makes the scene seem tacked on. For instance, in the opening master-shot, Carroll starts off wholly back-lit and (therefore in silhouette); then, as Colman bows to her, a light is brought up on her face rather eerily.

The exchange (in a combination of two-shots and over-the-shoulder ones), which should be the acme of romance, is stilted in both writing and acting, in the over-melodramatic, silent-influenced style of early 30s talkies. In particular, the transition in Carroll from the wishful thinking of running away with Colman to a recognition of her duty to stay is clunky and unconvincing; as if she were speaking words previously suggested under hypnosis.

And when Colman gets on one knee, and Carroll lays her hands on his head - dollying out to a long-shot more or less matching the opening shot of the scene - the whole thing has all but descended into self-parody.

Finally, the story must take its share of the blame. It has no pretensions of being a ‘procedural' of Central European royal politics, naturally. (For instance, one would expect Flavia to marry not a relative but some foreign prince (for political advantage, and to avoid inbreeding.))

But the plotting (in both senses) of the baddies seems particularly threadbare - minimising the ‘fish out of water' feelings one should get, especially at a hundred years' remove from the action.

And Mary Astor as the ‘inside man' is woefully underused - if only for the fact that she has more sex appeal, even when veiled, than the rest of the cast put together.

The ending (which is that of the book) is satisfying only as the set-up for a sequel. To deny the expected (Boy gets Girl) outcome is perfectly valid when the denial has an artistic point. (In ‘The Third Man', for instance.) Here, without a sequel, it is merely frustrating.

A more satisfying ending suggests itself to me (and something like it must have suggested itself to Selznick): the King recognises his unsuitability for the job, and agrees to assume Rassendyll's identity in London, in return for a large annuity. No doubt, he would also receive Rassendyll's ‘black book', with the names of the wealthy widows he had been servicing back home. Flavia gets her man, Ruritania its best king in decades, everyone ends up ahead.

Perhaps, though, Selznick was leery of pointing up the resemblance of his King Rudolph to the tragically unsuitable King Edward (who by then had abdicated the British throne on account of the most un-Flavia-like Mrs Simpson).

Beware: Spoilers Ahead!

One of the four or five best British films - a tribute to the hard-boiled, cynical Hollywood films of the previous two decades from a thoroughly weary England reflecting ruefully on its reduced circumstances - and the swaggering brashness of its erstwhile ally.

To start with, it's no thriller. The only thriller taking place is the one in Holly Martins's head. A shoddy piece of hack-work, full of improbabilities, loose ends, lack of motivation. (The average Hollywood product of today, in fact!)

Everyone else is in the real world, half-listening to Martins's childish ramblings, until they get tired and shut him up.

Go through the list of characters, and ask yourself who they really are - as opposed to Martins's paint-by-numbers interpretation.

A 40 year old Major, several years after the War, stuck in a hell-hole like Vienna? A hefty Swiss bank account, one suspects, is the explanation.

And Anna: her view of ‘love' will no doubt have been conditioned by the innumerable times she had been raped (or had prostituted herself ) to stay alive, escape Czechoslovakia - or get Popescu to come across with the fake passport.

Crabbin clearly knows as much about culture as Martins. He reeks of espionage. (In what language, I wonder, would his severe-looking female companion remonstrate with you if you pinched her behind?)

And Lime himself - for whom exactly is he working? It would be essential for Western intelligence to have people in the Russian sector - black marketeer was a better cover than most - might even make the operation self-financing!

The penicillin racket seems too much a crime ‘du jour' - like identity theft, say, today. The ‘evidence' montage (fingerprints and so forth) underlines that Martins wouldn't understand what he was being shown. Would want to believe his friend, if bad, was at least involved with something novelistic.

And one doubts whether the identity of bodies could be quite as easily switched as the ostensible story would require, without some official help.

(Incidentally, on the front of both of Anna's passports, ‘Autriche' is misspelt....)

The real story, such as it is, is Martins blundering, and everyone else trying to keep out of his way. Or get him out of the city altogether.

The point of the film, though, is entertainingly to contrast the naive, boorish, ignorant - and boring - ‘white hat' (by the time the light falls on Welles' face in that blind doorway, we are looking at our watches) - with the savvy, cool, witty and clubbable villain: much to the latter's advantage.

(Of course, Martins is not only a bore: his crass stupidity gets those who help him killed: the porter, and the Sergeant. And his motormouth results in Anna not taking her train to freedom.)

Lime, in the famous Prater wheel scene, is speaking for the Court, much in the same way as the Claude Rains character in ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington'.

His mockery of the high tone of governments is precise - as is the context. In a city thoroughly bombed about, we are invited to consider the ‘dots' on the ground from the bomb-aimer's viewpoint. At a time when the Nuremberg trials were fresh in the memory, he points up just how cheap life was held by ‘our' politicians, for all their fine words.

The technical means employed are delightful in themselves. The (deliberately) absurdly expressionistic photography of Krasker - more dutch angles than regular ones - expresses Martins's point of view as an uncomprehending stranger. There are what I take to be sarcastic references to the product of Nazi cinema - the low-angle shots of people out in the street, and the close-ups of the fat woman serenaded in the restaurant by Kurtz's violin, recall Jewish caricatures.

And the music. I suspect that the Vienna Philharmonic and Stadtsoper were back in operation by the time in which the film is set. But a philistine like Martins would remember only the zither-music. Just like in ‘Brief Encounter', the music is not background, but a star deserving equal top billing.

It often defies convention, crashing mood, not enhancing it. (In the first cemetery scene, the cheery new variation which comes just after Calloway has told Martins that Lime is the deceased, for instance.) Or it goes completely over the top - as when, in Anna's dressing-room, Martins first realises that Lime's ‘death' might not be an accident. The music is a constant reminder to the audience to avoid a superficial reading of the film.

And it makes the truly delicious final scene possible. The look of utter, bone-tired disgust on Calloway's face as he starts up his jeep, leaving Martins to it. The steady, unyielding walk of Anna up to the camera and out of shot frame right, leaving Martins completely up the creek and looking as stupid as he really is.

The moral: Anna may have been had by half the undesirables of Central Europe - but she has more dignity than to spend one more minute in the company of this contemptible specimen!

More broadly, the film invites us to look at the particular quality of American naivety in political life, at home and abroad. Typified by periodic monomaniacal moral crusades - ‘abolition this minute' versus ‘slavery for ever', Prohibition, various Red Scares - which usually come with a hefty price tag.

The making and release of the film covers the period of the ‘loss' of China and the start of the Korean War (and hence the US post-War Asian adventure). One might reflect that a few more Limes on the case, and correspondingly fewer Martins, might have saved a whole load of grief!

In short, the more you watch the film, the more you think about it, the more historical context you give it - the deeper and smarter it gets. Which qualifies it as truly a work of art.

Be warned: spoilers ahead! Read no further if you wish to view the film with an innocent and unprejudiced eye.

The most hateworthy film is not the worst film, but the one with the elements to make a much better one.

And, not for the first time, one reason why 'The Truth' is less than the sum of its parts is the obsession with concept.

Once chosen, the Cyrano plotline had to be followed through. Regardless of the fact that the actor chosen to play 'Roxane' left whatever charm he had on his side of the screen.

Shorn of this useless baggage, one has a film. Firstly, in the stunning form of Janeane Garofalo, who is unattractive only to those from a galaxy far, far away. (And Hollywood casting directors.) And whose screen-crossing warmth - cuddlesomeness, indeed - is cut, like a good Alsace Riesling, with an acidic realism barely short of cynicism, essential for adult viewing.

And Thurman, Hollywood-thin, her too-wide, lips-look-like-they've-been done Julia Roberts mouth and sub-Durante nose plain to see, is appealingly vulnerable. (Though there is no entertainment value in seeing her brutalised by her Neanderthal boyfriend: as unnecessary as the excesses that spoilt 'Born Yesterday', of which the film is reminiscent.)

So, the ingredients are there for the much talked-of female buddy movie - 'Thelma and Louise' without the gun play. Something like this:

Garofalo - whose business is caring for dumb animals - sees getting Thurman her break on local TV as an extension of business as usual. (She is naturally nowhere near as stupid as the truly 'dumb blonde' she appears to be. That simply would not be credible.) And Thurman, even in the film itself, clearly has a college freshman crush on Garofalo (as witness the - genuinely touching - scene when she gives Garofalo a violin bow to replace the one her boyfriend broke). She reciprocates in giving her fashion, make-up and similar advice on getting a man. (Any man but the überlumpen Chaplin.) She fails, of course. (Though, through the miracle of American montage, she need take only 90 seconds to do so!)

But the final scene writes itself - the two girls, plus cat, snuggle on the sofa in their novelty jammies sharing a box of Kleenex over 'Now, Voyager' or 'Casablanca'. A real 90s happy ending - not settling, exactly, but finding contentment wherever one can.

Which brings up the other reason why the Chaplin thing was followed to the bitterly boring end. Hollywood is happy to roll out the liberal barrel: but only when more tightly controlled than security around the US president.

So when it comes to female friendship, for instance, a metaphorical three-foot rule applies. Hugging, kissing, holding hands - all that sort of girly stuff must be held tightly in check. Physical contact only when there is sufficient misery to negative any lurking eroticism. Lower down the cast list, fine. A little Sapphic colour to goose up the ratings never goes amiss. But, for leading actresses in happy times, PDAs - any DAs - must be sneaked in (as Thurman does, holding hands with Garofalo in the department store for a luxurious 15 seconds....)

I don't know where Thurman's crush on Garofalo would have led. There's no earthly reason why the film needed to be explicit on the point. (Though something might usefully have replaced the opposite-of-erotic phone sex sequence in the movie.)

Just leaving the matter open would have left viewers with a bit of a lift, instead of the suet-dumpling resting heavy on the stomach that the film actually manages.

This was supposed to be Garofalo's breakthrough movie. Instead, her film career seems more or less to have hit the buffers. This film shows just what a talent the paying public have been deprived of. Thanks to some craven and unimaginative suits.