The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Directed by James Whale

Screenplay by R.C. Sheriff, based on the novel by H. G. Wells

Runtime: 1 hr, 11 min

Watching The Invisible Man, or rather writing my review of it, reminded me of an excerpt from Plato’s Republic, regarding the Ring of Gyges.  The ring gives the wearer the power of invisibility, and this legend segues into a discussion of whether man would be virtuous if he could then do evil without fear of repercussion.  I have no idea if the filmmakers or original novelist H. G. Wells had this tale in mind in crafting the story, but I do think the basic premise weighs heavily on the 1933 film adaptation.

Claude Rains, making his American screen debut, stars the title character, otherwise known as Jack Griffin.  Griffin is the scientist who meddles in things in which man should not be meddling.  Specifically, he has found a way to become completely invisible, and he heads off to a country inn to work on the antidote.  What he doesn’t realize is that a drug in the concoction has been found to cause madness, and he’s clearly fallen victim.  Griffin becomes fixated on causing chaos, using his powers of invisibility to bring the entire world to its knees.

Rains has become one of my favorite actors over the years, and he does not disappoint here.  While it is a bit unsettling that the audience does not get to see him act, his voice-over work is still top notch.  His intonations alternate between a refined, determined pacing and the ramblings of a man losing his grip on sanity.  Note how in one of his interactions with his lover Flora (Gloria Stuart), he begins by rationally describing what inspired him to work on invisibility—fame, fortune, legacy—but slowly descends into impassioned screaming that he’s able to conquer the world.

That sequence is emblematic of the tensions contained within the film.  For one, how exactly does one read Griffin as a character?  On the one hand, he seems to be a devoted scientist who just gets over his head, and legitimately wants an antidote so he can share his new discovery with the world.  Then again, even before the madness fully sets in, he’s left Flora without a word of explanation and is pretty rude to the innkeepers.  We don’t get the benefit of facial expressions, so all that’s available is his dialogue and motivations.

Yet perhaps that’s intentional.  So little can be determined about Griffin because of his invisibility, which more or less enables one to project onto him as a character.  One could easily live out a power fantasy through the character, or see him as the personification of the darkness of man set loose on a country village.  He’s an open-ended character, which is one of the film’s biggest strengths.  (It’s also why the final shot of the film, in which the invisibility wears off, is a bit problematic—it undermines the notion that Griffin is defined as “the invisible man”).

Further tensions can be found in the tone of the movie.  The Invisible Man manages to expertly balance the requisite horror movie elements with anarchic, slapstick comedy.  The film juxtaposes Griffin promising to kill his partner and colleague, Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan), with a scene in which Griffin messes with the cops and skips down a back road—wearing one fht officer’s pants—singing “Nuts in May”.  It’s as if they come out of two different films, in a good way, which complicates the meaning of the movie.

Is the audience supposed to find such mayhem to be enjoyable, frolicking fun, an escape from the rules of civil society?  Or do Griffin’s comedic acts in fact inspire terror that one could find glee in causing train derailments?   By positioning horror elements next to comedic ones, the film present a scenario where the repressed desire to do ill with impunity is placed directly on screen, and almost dares the viewer to not get engaged with the terroristic merriment.  Enticing as it is, it is also horrifying in its implications for the morality of man.

Furthermore, the special effects used to create the illusion of invisibility, which are stunning by the standards of early 1930s technology, may contribute to the wish fulfillment that the film presents.  The clarity and seamlessness of Griffin’s reveal of his power contrasts sharply with his exterior appearance whilst invisible: face covered in bandages with dark glasses and artificial nose.  His exterior is repulsive and immediately frightens onlookers, but his form as Invisible Man is sleek and state-of-the-art.  Who could resist entering stripping naked and wreaking havoc with that sort of transition?

As I write this review, I feel that I may seem a touch hypocritical, considering that two weeks ago I trashed Slightly Dangerous for its blatant wish fulfillment.  But I think the difference is in presentation.  The Invisible Man is meant to be enticing in its depictions of evil; how else could one get a semi-sympathetic protagonist?  But this is ultimately a horror story, and Griffin’s reign of terror over England is depicted in exactly those terms.  There’s a distinct message at work: in this universe, at least, evil does indeed lurk in the hearts of men.  But oh, how tempting it is.

I'll Wait for You (1941)

I’ll Wait for You (1941)

Directed by Robert B. Sinclair

Screenplay by Guy Trosper

Runtime: 1 hr, 13 min

Most of the movies that I end up reviewing have pedigree of some sort.  Maybe they have a star-studded cast, well known sequences, or a big-name directed.  Hell, a few have been notable for just how catastrophic they were.  At the very least, almost all of them have a page devoted to them on Wikipedia.  But then there are the films that time seems to have forgotten, the footnotes to cinematic history.  Usually this is for good reason, but venturing into this morass of the forgotten can yield surprisingly pleasant results, such as I’ll Wait for You.

A remake of the 1934 film Hide Out, the film centers on racketeer Lucky Wilson (Robert Sterling).  He’s a smooth talker and ladies man who is on the run from the authorities, led by Lieutenant McFarley (Paul Kelly).  Lucky gets shot in process and takes shelter on a Connecticut farm owned by the Miller family.  He immediately takes a shine to the farmers’ older daughter, Pauline (Marsha Hunt), and it becomes clear that the feelings are mutual.  The question is whether Lucky can reconcile his new environs with his slick living lifestyle.

There are a lot of elements in I’ll Wait for You that are very rote and obvious (not the least of which is the ending, thanks to the title).  You have the standard fish out of water story early on, as Lucky, a lifelong New Yorker who’s never been north of Yankee Stadium, must cope with life on the farm.  You have the racketeer background, which of course focuses on nightclubs and laundries used as fronts.  And you have the romantic bond built as a woman nurses a man back to health.  In short, this movie would not recognize Originality if it sat in its lap.

Yet this is not necessarily a problem.  A formulaic film can still be done well, and while I’ll Wait for You is far from spectacular, it is enjoyable.  For one thing, the formulaic elements are not all that painful to swallow.  What bothers Lucky most about farm life is not the lack of anything to do or the cultural values, but rather all the animals that never stop squawking.  It actually communicates his relation to his surrounding very well: whereas he doesn’t notice the sound of traffic, he does notice every different bird that chirps the night away.

In addition, it would be a bit too easy to paint the Miller family as either antagonistic to city-slicker Lucky or as purveyor of infinite, commonsense wisdom.  They’re just colorful folks.  The father (Henry Travers) is a well-intentioned but lacks any sort of verbal filter and loves to spin yarns, while his wife (Fay Holden) is caring to the point of smothering.  Their younger daughter Lizzie (Virginia Weidler), meanwhile, is kind of bratty is but clearly in love with life and her rabbits.  They bring some texture to this universe and serve as more than mere window-dressing.

That said, what gets the film over its rote screenplay is the strength of the lead performances.  Sterling shows a wide range of modes throughout the film: seductive, sincere, confused and cocksure.  He shines best when his character faces an emotional state which is new to him: legitimate, honest to goodness love.  Considering that his previous relationships to women have been shallow, it would makes sense for his character to react strangely, even violently to the fact that he’s now experiences mature love, that he might enter a mature relationship.

Marsha Hunt is no slouch, either.  True, Pauline as a character seems a bit too ideal as a lover, which makes her seem less than human.  But Hunt brings a dimension to the character which the screenplay does not.  When Pauline reveals that she has been in love with Lucky from the moment she first laid eyes on him, Hunt’s body language presents the possibility that this is not in fact true, that she is rationalizing her emotions at the moment, in response to Lucky declaration of love and less than subtle advances.

Even if the love between the two leads is a little hard to swallow—at least on Pauline’s end—it is difficult not to root for them.  I’m not sure this is entirely a good thing, considering that Lucky is still a crook and that seems to have a violent streak to him when he gets flustered.  It’s the sort of relationship which seems destined for a crash and burn at some point.  This makes the movie’s bittersweet ending appropriate, but I think that the presentation of the resolution is a bit too optimistic.  I somehow doubt that Lucky and Pauline is the romantic couple of our time.

Nevertheless, I’ll Wait for You proves to be a rather sweet story with potentially dark undertones.  Granted, a more daring or original film probably would have explored those lurking concerns, and that’s the sort of film that I would have preferred.  But that’s not the story that the film wanted to tell.  The filmmakers wanted to make a simple story of burgeoning love cut short too soon, and on that front they succeeded.  At less than an hour an half, it’s not a major time investment, and either way it’s inoffensive.  You could do a lot worse, is what I’m saying.

Slightly Dangerous (1943)

Slightly Dangerous (1943)

Directed by Wesley Ruggles

Screenplay by Charles Lederer and George Oppenheimer

Runtime: 1 hr, 34 min

I’m sure that all of us have fantasies about being rich and famous at some point.  During a boring day in class or at work, our mind wanders off into a land where we’re secretly the long lost relatives of some rich family.  What a perfect escape from humdrum suburban existence, am I right?  Yet most of us rightly put those fantasies away, rather than indulging in them and letting the idea dominate our existence.  Slightly Dangerous, however, dives right into that particular daydream, and the result is a sickening and unconvincing mess.

Our star is Lana Turner, who plays small town soda jerk Peggy Evans.  Her job is so easy that she can literally perform her tasks blindfolded, and she is explicitly fed up with her life with a man and aspirations.  When the new manager of the shop, Bob (Robert Young), calls her into his office for her blind soda jerking, she snaps and runs off to the city.  Shortly after arrival, she gets hit on the head with a paint can, and fakes having amnesia.  Long story short, she convinces everyone that she is Carol Burden, the long lost daughter of soap tycoon Cornelius Burden (Walter Brennan).

Honestly, when Peggy first got to the city, I thought the movie had an interesting thread going for it.  Peggy is in the midst of an identity crisis and desperately wants to reinvent herself.  The first thing she does is blow all her money on a new outfit and her inner monologue spends a long while trying to come up with a new name.  It’s a picture trying to superficially escape from their small town life.  It presents someone who is not in a sound mental state, and could be fertile ground for a psychological exploration.  Yes, I thought that this film could have been deep.

Oh, how quickly I was proven wrong.  Not thirty seconds after I started thinking, Peggy is hit with a falling paint can, and the identity crisis angle is quickly painted over.  Once Peggy has convinced Cornelius and the nanny (May Whitty) that she is Carol, the thematic undertones the movies had been building up are thrown aside, and a mere trifle begins: scenes at the philharmonic and dances with fellow socialites ensue.  What could have been an interesting character study with comedic elements is abandoned in favor of simple wish fulfillment.

Now, I will say that the way in which Peggy “becomes” Carol is actually pretty clever.  She has to pick out Carol’s favorite toy from the playroom; she’s got a one-in-one-hundred chance of guessing correctly.  Yet Peggy is able to mentally narrow down the possibilities, since she learned that it was kept in a small safe.  Granted, this briefly turns what was supposed to be a comedy in a Donald Sobol story, but I will give the filmmakers credit for writing and filming a fairly interesting and suspenseful sequence.

However, the implications of the scene are what get under my skin.  See, Peggy’s actions are wholly unethical; she knows that she is not Carol, yet she continues with the charade because she is afraid of going to jail if she confesses.  Had she just stumbled into this position out of sheer luck, then the resulting sequences would have carried the necessary overtone that this is wrong.  But because Peggy guesses the toy correctly, it is as if she earned living the lie.  She’s deceiving other people, and the film implicitly rewards her for it.

It is rare that I harp on the morality of a movie so much, but in this case, the ethical implications override all other considerations for me.  It’s a shame, really, because there are some good elements to Slightly Dangerous.  Walter Brennan turns in a hearty performance as Mr. Burden; his facial expressions demonstrate the years of frustration and sorrow along with the sudden bursts of joy at finding “Carol”.  Of course, thinking of his performance immediately makes me think of how horrible a person that Peggy is.

Or there are the scenes in the soda fountain, which feature brief but memorable encounters with customers and a lively atmosphere as Peggy wows customers with her blindfolded sundae making bit.  It is fun to watch, but at the same time carries an oppressive tone in just how bright it is.  Yet even those scenes are sullied by the central immorality.  After hearing rumors that Peggy drowned herself, all the workers go on a blindfolded strike.  They of course don’t know about her dealings in the city, but it reinforces the notion that Peggy’s actions are justified.

In the end, yes, I can’t get past the main character’s lack of ethics.  Well, I could—if the film didn’t condone it.  Really, this is wish fulfillment in the extreme.  Yes, viewer, you too are trapped in a world which doesn’t appreciate your obvious talents.  You too can leave everyone back home worried about your safety and lie to long grieving parents so that you can live out your fantasies and escape your small town ennui.  And you too won’t have to worry about any real repercussions—because you deserve that lifestyle.  Lord, is this movie is detestable…

Romeo and Juliet (1936)

Romeo and Juliet (1936)

Directed by George Cukor

Screenplay by Talbot Jennings, based on the play by William Shakespeare

Runtime: 2 hr, 5 min

Ah, William Shakespeare.  His plays have delighted the multitudes, brought enlightenment to theatre-goers and confounded high school English students for centuries.  It is no surprise, then, that the Bard’s works have been adapted many times over for the big screen.  And why not, with dialogue larger than life, sword play aplenty, and the fact that all of his works are in the public domain?  Yet there weren’t too many Shakespeare adaptations during Hollywood’s golden age, making the 1936 version of Romeo and Juliet a relatively unique specimen.

If you don’t know the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet, then welcome to Western civilization.  For all others, you know the drill; “star-cross’d lovers” and all that entails.  Here, we find Norma Shearer as Juliet of the Capulet clan and Leslie Howard playing Romeo, a Montague.  Their families hate each other but they fall in love and get married.  Only problem: the universe is conspiring against them, and as the prologue tells us, they commit suicide.  Their deaths bring forth reconciliation between the warring families, and the credits roll.

In terms of adapting the text for the screen, this version does its job rather nicely.  Screenwriter Talbot Jennings did cut some scenes out, particularly comic relief sequences in the second half, but the story itself is intact and is easy to follow.  In addition, the decision to show some of the offstage action is a welcome addition.  For example, this film shows the messenger getting quarantined on the way to Mantua.  While it does remove the textual suspense regarding whether Romeo gets the message, it also makes the event more believable and less of a plot convenience.

Furthermore, the way in which the filmmakers use new medium is indeed inspired.  One of the advantages of film is that the director and the cinematographer can choose which part of the scene to focus on at any given point.  This is used to great effect when Romeo first lays eyes on Juliet.  The camera cuts between Juliet’s grand entrance, complete with choir and dance, and Romeo’s mesmerized reaction.  This sequence underscores the pivotal nature of that first encounter, and similar scenes in the film have a very similar nature.

All that out of the way: let’s talk about the casting.  The cast list to this film still has me scratching my head.  On paper it looks excellent.  Howard, best known for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, is perfect for the part of Romeo, Basil Rathbone is a top-notch choice for Tybalt, and they even got John Barrymore to play Mercutio.  This tale of star-cross’d lovers merits a star-studded cast, and that’s exactly what it got.  The only problem was that this particular adaptation was made in 1936.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is far too old for their roles.  Romeo, Juliet and their pals are teenagers.  That’s kind of why they act so impulsively throughout the story.  The fact that Shearer, then in her early-thirties, is the closest to her character’s age should tell you something.  This causes some massive incongruities in the characters’ actions.  It is so jarring to see someone who is clearly an adult trying to tap into the emotional immaturity of a 14-year old.  It’s as if the audience has entered into a topsy-turvy world.

Still, I could forgive the odd casting choices if the performances were good.  But, well, they aren’t.  Well, okay, most of them are passable, and Rathbone was made to play a man such as Tybalt.  However, the train wrecks are far more vivid in this film.  Most unfortunately, Barrymore is beyond wretched as Mercutio.  There’s no liveliness to his mayhem and humor; he looks as though he’s simply going through the motions.  But we’re talking about Mercutio, the guy cracking jokes as he lies dying.  The result is a performance which is annoying and boring simultaneously.

Granted, some performances have memorable moments, such as Shearer’s contemplations and fears before taking the sleeping potion.  But these problems with the performances prevent me as a viewer from getting invested in the film.  Who cares that Mercutio is dead and all hell has broken loose as a result?  Who cares that Romeo has been banished from Verona?  These guys have become archetypal characters; it should not be so difficult to latch onto their plight, yet this adaptation of Romeo and Juliet finds a way.

I really did have high hopes for this film, and had the casting department done its job properly instead of simply grabbing at names, I could easily see this film as a smashing success.  There’s weight to sets and the costuming; there’s the sense that Verona is an actual city with hordes of citizens.  It has all of the trappings of a major production that a Shakespeare play deserves.  As it stands, however, Romeo and Juliet as directed by George Cukor is a failure.  Not one on the level of the Baz Luhrmann version, but a failure nonetheless.

Finian's Rainbow (1968)

Finian’s Rainbow (1968)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Screenplay and book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, based on the stage play by the same

Runtime: 2 hr, 25 min

I may not be any sort of expert on film or film history, but I absolutely love writing about and reviewing classic cinema.  And I have loved maintaining this blog in order to do it.  The process writing up these reviews has exposed me to films that I would otherwise probably ignore, and by several strokes of luck, the vast majority of movies have been a treat to view.  Occasionally, however, one must watch a catastrophe, and few movies I’ve ever seen are quite as catastrophic as today’s film, Finian’s Rainbow.

Set in Rainbow Valley, which is two miles from Fort Knox, Finian’s Rainbow finds Fred Astaire as Finian, an Irishman who has taken a crock of gold from a leprechaun named Og (Tommy Steele) and traveled to America with his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark) to make his money multiply—long story.  Meanwhile, there’s a rancorous senator (Keenan Wynn) who wants the town property for his own corrupt uses, but the residents of Rainbow Valley, led by a fellow named Woody (Don Francks), are none too happy about that.

Finian’s Rainbow, buried somewhere deep in the proceedings, has the makings of a good movie—political corruption and hatred, mysticism and money-making schemes.  It’s got all of that, and that’s the problem.  Watching the film try to juggle all these plotlines and elements is like watching me try to juggle anything—it all falls down very, very quickly.  Despite nearly two-and-a-half hours of screen time, Finian’s Rainbow fails to adequately develop any of its subplots, let alone integrate them into a coherent story.

The clearest example of this problem comes in the romance between Sharon and Woody.  When Sharon and Woody first arrive in town, they clearly demonstrate some possible chemistry.  Yet at their very next interaction, they share a musical number and fall in love.  I get that it’s a light-hearted affair, but can we at least get them some more dialogue before they get to that point in their arc?  This event occurs about a third of the way through the film—which leaves a good hour-and-a-half of their relationship going absolutely nowhere.

Normally, a weak storyline (or several) can be salvaged by some good performances.  Sadly, Finian’s Rainbow is in short supply of those.  I will say that Petula Clark has a fine sing voice and brings energy to her character, but the rest of the cast is dire.  Fred Astaire, no doubt a result of his age, appears lethargic as Finian, and Francks’ Woody is as stiff as board; there’s no way he’s in love.  But the worst is by far Tommy Steele, who is overacting in all the wrong ways and performs as if restraint is a foreign concept.  I hated him from thirty seconds in, and not one second passed where I didn’t wish for him to drown.

Still, I can see why Steele, a teen idol in Britain, would be cast in a musical—he certainly can sing.  But given the voices of Steele and Clark and the moves of Astaire, I’m a bit perplexed how shaky the musical elements of the film are.  Most of the songs are flat or cloying and fail to advance the plot or characters; only the melody of “This Time of the Year” sticks out.  Even worse is the choreography, which is confused as all hell.  The dances aren’t engaging and the staging is hacked to bits by poorly placed cuts.  Apparently dance gives you the power of teleportation.

Yet what gets my goat the most—more than the acting, the plotting, or the music—is the fact that Finian’s Rainbow has a message.  Not that it’s a bad message; “Don’t be a bigot,” while obvious today, would be a worthwhile one for the film’s setting.  The problem is that it’s this movie that’s delivering it.  The amount of disconnect between the painful slapstick from the god-forsaken leprechaun and the sudden turns to anti-racism from Sharon is staggering.  Even for light entertainment, Finian’s Rainbow does not earn the right to preach to its audience.

Okay, I will give the film one thing: it look beautiful.  Even though the amount of green in the movie sets gives the impression that Finian and Sharon never left Ireland, the textures and cinematography are lovely.  There’s a certain surreal appearance to the grass, especially where Finian buries the crock of gold.  This does an excellent job of accentuating the mystical qualities of the film’s story and characters.  It also leads to the obvious joke that, yes, I would rather watch the grass growing than what was portrayed on screen.

Finian’s Rainbow fails in some many ways that laying the blame on anyone person would be inadequate.  Is it Coppola’s fault for not getting how a musical is staged?  Do we blame Tommy Steele for making a bad set of performances intolerable?  Or could it be that the screenwriters clearly needed to give the script a good once-over before handing it in?  Yes, yes, and yes, and yes to several more possibilities.  Ultimately, Finian’s Rainbow serves as a great guide to filmmaking.  See what they did here?  Yeah, don’t do that.

Eight Men Out (1988)

Eight Men Out (1988)

Directed by John Sayles

Screenplay by John Sayles, based on the book by Eliot Asinof

Runtime: 1 hr, 59 min

Baseball has had a long history of, shall we say, less than ethical behavior.  From Ty Cobb sharpening his spikes to take out fielders, to allegations that Gaylord Perry threw spitballs, all the way to the still-current steroid era, the national pastime has had scandal galore and then some.  But one incident in particular stands out, and that of course would be the Black Sox scandal, in which in several players on the Chicago White Sox threw the 1919 World Series as part of gambling scandal.  It is this dark episode of baseball lore which John Sayles chronicles in Eight Men Out.

The eight men in the title refer to the ballplayers who were implicated in the scandal.  The most famous is “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (D. B. Sweeney), but he’s largely in the background.  In terms of the players, Sayles chooses to focus on the lesser known figures: first baseman and ringleader Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker), conflicted ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn), and, especially, third baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack), whose involvement in the scandal has been, as with Jackson’s, hotly contested.

The strength of Sayles’ film partially lies in how he portrays the chemistry, or lack thereof, within the White Sox organization.  Forget feelings on throwing the series; the opening sequence, depicting the last game of the regular season, shows the players ragging and sniping at each other regarding place of birth and education level.  Perhaps more importantly, the scene highlights the players’ incentive to throw the series, when owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James) gives his team flat champagne in lieu of an actual bonus for winning the pennant.

Had the film kept the action squarely on the players, the story told would be both crystal clear and compelling on the character level.  Unfortunately, too broad a net is cast; every angle of the Black Sox scandal is covered.  The gamblers who initiate the scandal; the circle of Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner), who provided the money; the journalists who suspect something is up; the families of the players—they all get screen time.  But there simply isn’t enough screen time to adequately cover everything involved in the conspiracy.

In fact, the movie juggles so many story elements that there is scant time to register who’s who in the scandal.  Few of the characters who are not on the White Sox are given substantive introductions, and unless one is intimately familiar with the history of the 1919 World Series, I can’t imagine how one could follow this story without significant mental effort.  One of my rules for filmmaking is that the audience should always be able to determine what is literally happening on screen, but Eight Men Out has too broad a scope to follow that rule.

The performances in the movie are significantly better than the structure, though the best turns tend to be in supporting roles.  Christopher Lloyd keeps a comic undertone as gambling man Bill Burns, and Charlie Sheen is perfectly cast as the not-entirely-there centerfielder Happy Felsch.  My personal favorites, however, are Strathairn, who appears the most torn up about the scandal, and Gordon Clapp as beleaguered catcher Ray Schalk, constantly fuming that his pitchers are crossing him up and not throwing breaking balls.

Besides the acting, what Eight Men Out does best is capture the game on the field and in the stands.  While the real story of the Black Sox scandal involves backrooms and disreputable gamblers, this ultimately is a baseball film.  From Cicotte hitting the first batter of the series to Jackson’s home run during garbage time in game eight, Sayles puts a gradually changing atmosphere into each at-bat.  The crowd in Cincinnati is on its feet from the get go, but by the time the last game is played in Chicago, both the suspected fix and the inevitability of defeat weigh heavily on the fans.

As a matter of fact, the film captures the emotions in the park so well that it may have been a more effective movie if the fix were gradually revealed through the actions of the players and the reactions of the fans and journalists.  It would have kept the character count down, added a sense of mystery and dread to the proceedings, and allowed for some more complex character developments.  Sure, anyone with a cursory knowledge of baseball history would know that the series was fixed, but the question of how it’s exposed would still remain.

Alas, that not the movie that John Sayles made.  I find it difficult to fault a director for ambition, and covering every aspect of a story certainly would qualify as an ambitious endeavor.  But to accomplish such a feat, one must lay the foundations properly, and that’s ultimately what sinks the film.  Not enough background and too little individual character development prevent Eight Men Out from being a home run.  Maybe it’s a single that just gets past the shortstop.  In other words, it’s just a routine, unspectacular baseball flick.

The Circus (1928)

The Circus (1928)

Written and directed by Charlie Chaplin

Runtime: 1 hr, 11 min

As goes my motto, “I need to watch more silent movies.”  I find unacceptable that I didn’t see a silent picture until the summer before my senior year of high school (Speedy).  I find it unacceptable that I’ve only seen Buster Keaton in a cameo role in Around the World in 80 Days.  I could go on, but the question always on my mind regarding the subject is, “Why haven’t I viewed more Chaplin movies?”  After all, I’ve seen two and liked both; what am I waiting for?  Well, here’s to addressing that issue, and here’s a review of The Circus.

Chaplin, who wrote, directed, produced and later composed the score for the movie, stars as the Tramp.  After a run-in with the authorities rife with laugh-out-loud pratfalls, the Tramp winds up at a circus, which is struggling to get the audience to laugh.  Chaplin’s efforts to evade the cops, however, bring down the house, and the ring master (Allan Garcia) offers him a job.  The Tramp accepts and soon falls in love with Merna (Merna Kennedy), the ring master’s mistreated step-daughter.  Being a Chaplin film, hilarity ensues.

And hilarity does indeed ensue, but there’s a twist to this story.  See, the Tramp is only an accidental comedic genius.  When the ring master has him audition with the clowns, he has no idea what he’s doing.  Therefore, the Tramp must be put into situations where he must improvise his survival.  There’s a bit of dissonance at work—the audience is supposed to believe that Charlie Chaplin isn’t a natural funnyman.  Yet Chaplin pulls it off, largely because his failure to be funny is itself hilarious: never give clueless actors shaving cream, am I right?

Furthermore, the times where the Tramp is funny on accident are uproarious.  My personal favorite sequence occurs early in the film, where the Tramp is hiding from the cops in a funhouse.  Caught outside, he pantomimes being one the robotic figurine on the funhouse with such precision and timing—with punctuation from the score—that the feat alone is a riot.  He’s forced to work on the spot, which in some ways mirrors Chaplin’s method of filmmaking, where improvising from a vague premise was a frequent tool.

This contrasts nicely with the atmosphere of the circus, which is tightly managed and authoritarian.  It’s telling that before the Tramp arrives, the circus performance scenes are shot largely from backstage, highlighting the artificial nature of the material.  It is only when the Tramp barges in and inadvertently shines a light on the machinery (such as accidently activating the magician’s apparatus) that the audience begins to laugh.  In fact, by making the Tramp an unconscious comedian, Chaplin may be arguing for an unscripted form of comedy.

Arguments about the nature of comedy aside, The Circus can also be enjoyed as a fairly straightforward love story with a slew of zany hijinks thrown in for good measure.  Despite some early brusqueness towards her, the Tramp quickly takes a shine to Merna and stands up to her abusive stepfather.  However, when Rex (Harry Crocker), a new tightrope act, arrives at the circus, Merna is immediately drawn to him.  The Tramp doesn’t take to kindly to this; he wishes for Rex to take a spill on the tightrope while he and Merna watch the show.

This incident indicates that the Tramp is not a flawless figure and Chaplin’s reactions as he watches Rex go a long way to humanizing his character.  Sure, I love how the way the Tramp eludes the authorities casts the powers that be as incompetent and wrongheaded, but at the same time it’s good to see the scrappy everyman with legitimate faults.  In the end, though, one can count on the Tramp to do the right thing, get well away from the police’s path, and make the audience fall from their seats in mirth.

Chaplin’s so good in this role that the rest of cast suffers by comparison.  Garcia plays the typical mustachioed villain, Kennedy is charming but a little bland as the stepdaughter, and while Crocker has his moments, he doesn’t get enough time on screen to flesh out a fully formed character.  That they don’t turn in great performances does drag down the more pathos driven sequences of the film, but I realize that to do more justice to these roles would mean diluting the screen presence of Chaplin—and that is, after all, why we ultimately are here.

Yes, the audience is here because of Chaplin, and Chaplin delivers the goods.  I’m not sure what else the audience would be able to ask for.  Sure, The Circus doesn’t have the same social awareness as the other two films I’d seen (The Kid and The Great Dictator), but then, this film, like the title attraction, exists to entertain.  And it does precisely that.  If you are like me, then you will be laughing, laughing, pondering the film’s position on the role of spontaneity in comedy, and laughing.